Old Indian Trick

Thought I'd share this trick that my Grandpa showed me years ago. I must warn you if you have a weak stomach don't try this!:eek:

My Grandpa was 1/2 Native American and could catch Crappie like nobody I've ever seen. I have some great memories of fishing trips that he & I went on when I was just a young boy.

One day while on the way to a local lake here in far western Ky. Grandpa stopped on the side of the road, got out and picked up a road kill coon! I said "we ain't gonna eat that thing are we?" He replied "Naw". "What you gonna do with it?" I said. "Fish" he replied. I was totally confused.

We got to the lake, some of you may know it; Swan Pond they called it. Put his old john boat in, coon and all! We motored across the lake and stopped under a huge cypress. Grandpa grabbed a piece of bailing wire & proceeded to tie the coon up in the tree, then we went on our way and fished.

A few days later we returned to the cypress tree and OH MY GOD! The smell would knock you down. The flies had blown the coon and it was raining maggots. Grandpa snipped the wire and said "what you wait'n on?" Bait that hook & let's catch some fish!

We sat there in that one spot all day & I bet we had over 100 of the biggest, blackest Bluegill I've ever seen and some nice Crappie too. Grandpa told me that that's the way his daddy (a full blooded Native American) used to bait up a fish'n hole.

Like I said, its not for the faint of heart but I will asure you it will bring in the bulls!

Good luck and good fish'n! :D

ok im lost did yawll fish with the coon or did you sort of chum the water with it ?

Chum. The maggots from the ripie coon. Might not be to bad up wind. lol

Never have dragged road kill down to the lake, but unwanted fish work the same way. Back when we were young if we caught gar we would hang them from trees over the water. After the flies blew them then we would fish under them.
It would make my day to watch someone on Survivor do this to catch fish. Sadly most folks on there almost starve. Kinda shows how out of touch most of the world is with survival instincts. :o
Anyone want a bowl of Red Beans and Rice? Just fixed a big pot of it.

What we did was take any turtles that had died on our trotlines and string them from rear to head with a coat hanger, until the first time to see it I always wondered what coat hangers were doing in the boat. Then we would hang it on a tree limb and do the same as your road kill.

I've heard of it before, but never tried it.

Cats work great!

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Originally Posted by Shines Mullet Shak

Cats work great!

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And dogs too. :D

A local farmer said we needed to do this with his dead chickens. I thought it sounded gross , I guess he did'nt just think it up .:eek:

Good tip. I'd try a can of dog / cat food or a can of sweet corn. Leave it out for a day or two in the summer. It will be full of maggots. Guess I am too much of a wimp to use roadkill. However when I see about people raising wax worms I know that there is an easier way LOL.

Maybe it is the history buff in me or the part Indian but I'd like to catch some fish one day using just the gear the Indians did.

that sounds like a good idea im going to try that

The only draw back is trying to eat the fish you know have been sucking down those juices from the rotting flesh...Pass the hot sauce please

Dad use to take an ole fillet out fish and put it in a mason jar with holes poked in the lid. Flies would go in and lay eggs. Once the maggots formed we'd spread the contents of the jar on the picnic table to collect up. We did this for year's in my even younger days and caught plenty to eat on some ole cane poles. Don't know why we stopped. Guess he found out some stores sell bait.

#12 06-07-2006, 05:57 AM
Tunica
Slabmaster II Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: N Ms
Posts: 173



The only draw back is trying to eat the fish you know have been sucking down those juices from the rotting flesh
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...as opposed to the meat and 3 we know they normally dine on

if that is what it takes ill get my vix sav and doctor my nose and go gettem!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think your can of dog / cat food or a can of sweet corn will work very good. The idea is to hang the dead animal above the water. Then the maggots would drop into the water attracting fish to feed. I would think A can of dog / cat food or a can of sweet corn would not make enough maggots to attracted very many fish.

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Originally Posted by pulplip fiction

The only draw back is trying to eat the fish you know have been sucking down those juices from the rotting flesh

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Have u every ice fished and used the colored fly maggots(from the baitshop) for bait. What do you think the they feed those maggots before you buy them, its not prime rib.....hehehehe....

I had a great uncle that did the same type chumming .Worked great.

I had a neighbor when I was a kid used to pick up roadkill and put it in a burlap sack along with some big rocks. Wait a few days then dump it in the lake. Go back the next day and wear out the catfish. Same theory I guess.

I should have used the maggots that was in my garbage from my kids. Told my little girls to put a bag of fish gut in the garbage for the garbage man and they put it in a box outside. So the guts got left behind went away for the weekend and you know the rest. Got home smell of death looked and the box just covered with maggots. :mad: :mad: :mad:

Kids gotta love em

like the last post.3 cans of the cheapest dog food you can buy.take a screwdriver and stab into the side 10 or 12 times and bend down to make a tab or ledge.tie into a tree onn three sides so you will have shade at any time or room for a friend.leave for a couple of days.i always paint the cans green or brown to camo and tie inside the limbs to camo.come back a couple days later and you have a good baited hole.good to do it near deep water for access to good size fish.works pretty good and it is legal in my state to bait fish so the dnr says.

The dog food does work. I lived on lake Tuscaloosa a few years ago and did this every 4 days. Everyday I would catch 75 to 100 crappie from my boat dock. No one believed me. You can also put any meat or a combination in a burlap sack. Just get some meat from the grocery store that is going bad. Most of the time if you get to know the butcher they will just give it to you. I did this a lined it with cheese. After 3 or 4 good hot days drop it in the water and fish. After fishing, throw the bag away - Don't be a litter bug. That same day do it all over again. Drop a small concrete block weighted cedar tree under it and you got it made. Don't forget to drop a few deep lines with livers or such. Catfish are extremely attracted to this.

this is illegal in my state (California) but i think i'll try it. Ofcourse i wont eat these fish i catch.

All the lakes around here are developed for most of the shoreline:D . Imagine the doctor in his weekend home strolling down to his dock, as he ducks under the willow tree that hangs over the dock he comes face to face with a rotten coon hung from a string! I can't wait to try it:D !

This reminds me of another good larvae for bait: Bees. Here in the PNW, we get lots of paper wasps building nests under the eaves of the garage and house.
Just let them brood away until they have a good nest going, knock it down and use those larvae on a tiny fly hook. Fish can't resist em.

The stars were aligned this week to try out the old indian trick. The bank under the bridge at Lake Lewisville had a 15 pound rotting catfish filled w/ maggots that I pushed into the water with a stick. It must have been fate because I discovered this week that the chum bucket was growing some giant maggots (horse fly I guess?). Did well catching panfish with the maggots. Pulled in a crappie or two also. Fishing has not been that good on Lewisville lately so catching a lot of bluegill was fun. Being on the riprap in the shade close to a deep water channel helps too. The maggots that worked best are more advanced in their larval stage and are all black. They are a step or two away from pupae I guess. They are firm and hooking one through twice makes them stay on the hook well. We just let them crawl out of the container and clean themselves off a bit before hooking them on.

You can use a onion sack to place the dog food in also. That way it will hold more.
WE also used o use wasp nest. WE had a dock on the river. And there was a beer joint and a few barns on the top of the bank.
WE would get free cokes for getting rid of the wasp nest and then have free bait.
WE used a long cane pole with a rag wrapped around the end. Pour a little gas on the rag. And when you rag gets near the nest. They cover it up End of the wasp and free bait. But we did get stung a few times .
Pete

This is an interesting thread....Is there any other fishermen with "ole wives tales"???? I don't see how this could be illegal, hangin a coon in a tree over water...I guess when the maggots gets too fat to hold on, they drop in the water.....LC

I know an old river rat that takes old plastic soda bottles, cuts small holes in the knolls on the bottom, then stuffs his scrapes of chicken bones, steaks or whatever inside, then hangs them out over the water where the maggots will fall thru the holes and chum the area. What he targets is channels, but whatever the chum brings in it provides a good feeding area.

Michael J,

That sounds like a good idea...Sounds like it would take care of part of the smell.....DemoMan

I have a 50 acre lake that have Bass, Perch, Crappie, and Chanel Cat in. Every spring when we start to harvest the Perch and Catfish we fillet then then place the waste in a big hardware cloth basket we have near the spawning area. The fish come to it in the hundreds and just lay watching for any bugs or maggots that fall into the water. We try to keep waste in it all spring and up into the summer. It's a cheap food and high in protean.
I also have several persimmon trees on the bank. In the fall when the persimmons fall into the water the Chanel cat actually fight over them. I have caught them with their gut full of seeds.

It is a very good idea, that old river rat was something else. He came up with stuff like weighting his bubbler hose and dropping it over during summer lows to oxigenate the water which activated feeding from baitfish to gamefish. Everyday is a learning experience out on the water, we need to keep trying new things and share those ideas with each other.

sounds nasty!!

carryin the trash up to the dumpster is my favorite job. get a lot of bait that way .

My brother-in-law was over my house last nite and I was telling him about this forum and This thread and He told me one I thought I might add. He says his grandpa would take a clear jar(mason) poke holes in the lid tie a string through one of the holes and fill the jar with a dozen minnows or so. Drop it down near your favorite brush pile and it would send the slabs into a feeding frenzy! I don't know ,never have tested but it's an Idea!!!

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Originally Posted by Big Ed

My brother-in-law was over my house last nite and I was telling him about this forum and This thread and He told me one I thought I might add. He says his grandpa would take a clear jar(mason) poke holes in the lid tie a string through one of the holes and fill the jar with a dozen minnows or so. Drop it down near your favorite brush pile and it would send the slabs into a feeding frenzy! I don't know ,never have tested but it's an Idea!!!

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My grandpa (the one I wrote this thread about) used a big old pickle jar to do just that. He was full of "Old Indian Tricks". :D