Catching Cat Fish with a Milk Jug

Catfish are an incredibly smart fish! Not only that, they can actually talk.....well, at least they can make squeaking noises, even if that is not exactly talking. So, when you catch a catfish, and are reeling it in, that fish is squawking and letting all of the other catfish know that there are fishermen around, and not to bite on the bait.

After I caught the first catfish, they stopped biting. Since I didn't want to just sit there all day waiting for another catfish to decide to take the bait; I would make a "catfish catcher" out of a gallon milk jug. First you take about 5-6 feet of fish line and tie it to the handle of the milk jug, and bait the hook. Then you tie a long clothesline rope to the handle of the jug, pitch the whole thing out into the water, and tie the other end of the rope to a tree branch.

Every hour or so, you go and check on the milk jug, and when you see it moving around in the water, then you have caught a nice catfish for dinner.

 

I've heard that catfish has a lot of bones. Is this true? I've never had it before, but one day I would like to try it out. How do you prepare it. If there is a lot of bones I know some people deep fry it so the bones becomes edible.

 

@JoshPosh, catfish does have a lot of bones, and they are a stronger bone than most other fish have, so they don't break down when you are cooking them like the finer bones (like a trout, for example) will do. Most people who catch catfish will filet them off of the bones and just cook the filets. I have tried doing that, but I am just not good at skinning the catfish and fileting the meat, and you have to do that if you are going to make the deepfried catfish strips that are usually served.

A catfish can be cooked other ways besides the usual way, and since I didn't do well at making filets, I would cook the whole fish floured and pan-fried like you would do a trout or other fish. Then the meat just peels right off of the bone, and the flavor is actually similar to fried chicken.

My favorite way to cook catfish is to put it on the BBQ , once it is cleaned, washed, and the ugly head cut off (of course!). When it is done cooking on the BBQ, the skin will peel right off of the catfish, and the meat that is left tasted a lot like halibut to me. I dipped it in melted butter like you would a lobster, and it was just incredibly delicious!!

 

So you're using the milk jug as a floater and you just let it sit and check on it from time to time? Hahahaha, being lazy as I am I think I would make about ten of these floaters and just have them sitting in the river, and check on them every hour or so. Nice!!! Easy dinner if you set the time to do it and have a river nearby.

 

I think that it would depend on your fishing regulations, JoshPosh, whether you would be able to do this in a public lake or river. Here. most places only let you have one fishing pole per fisherman. (Probably one of the reason so many wives and children got to go fishing, whether they liked it or not.)

I lived in Missouri, where most of the country properties have at least one catfish pond on the property. Since they are on your own personal property, you can fish any way that you want to, and use whatever bait you please as well. While it does work well, there are a few important things to consider besides the legality of fishing that way with multiple baited hooks.

It needs to be in water that doesn't have brush or thick weeds, or the fish will wrap around in the brush, and then you can't land it. Also, there has to not be much of a current running, like a river would have, because you have to see the line and the jug traveling back and forth in the water. If the current is strong, then the jug will just float downstream and stay there unless you catch a really large fish.

If you try it, let us all know how it works for you, Josh!!

 

Hawaii is mostly sea water based fishing. If there are any man made ponds on private property they are going to be small and in concrete. Hawaii doesn't have good water retention. The water will simply wash away down the valleys and out to sea. Catfish is in short supply here.

 

Josh, I think it would work for any kind of fishing that you can use a bobber for. The reason I used it ofr catfish was because they are smart enough to warn the other fish not to nite, so it would take several hours before any other catfish would bite on the bait. It was pretty worthless just sitting there waiting for the catfish to decide to bite again, so I just left the milk jug out with the bait and chacked back at the pond ever hour or two. when the jug was "swimming around", then I knew that I had caught another fish and pulled in the jug and catfish.

I just don't know how well it would work for you when you are fishing in the ocean, because the current is stronger, and it would be hard to tell when you have a fish on the line. However, if you have a place to try it out, you can see if it will work for you as well.

 

You are SO totally right!

Except for some of those grotesque fish that live in the very depths of the ocean, a catfish has got to be one of the ugliest fish in the world. When I lived in Idaho, no one ever ate a catfish. We fished for trout, which are (as fish go) a beautiful fish. Catfish are pretty much a southern custom, although they are found just about everywhere.

Not only are they ugly, they are horrible to clean and cook. I well remember my first experience with cooking catfish. I was 19, newly married, and my husband had told me that catfish were good to eat. After a long day of fishing, we came home and he set about cleaning the fish. Those catfish were not even DEAD yet!! They had been out of water for hours by then. While the catfish laid their and gulped for air, my husband took a big hunting knife and hacked off their heads. The heads laid there and gulped for air. I could not even watch anymore, so I left the room until he said that the fish were all cleaned and filleted, and ready to flour and put into the frying pan.

I am not kidding about this.......when I put the catfish fillets in that frying pan, they were squirming and flopping around!! That is when I screamed and ran out of the kitchen. It was years and years before I would even THINK about eating a catfish after that...

 

I wont eat catfish unless it was all there is. I find them disgusting... they are scavengers. I wont eat pig either. LOL