we'll see soon. I have both corn and milo fermenting in 5 gallon buckets in the back yard. I'm planning a trip next weekend for some big cats. I'll report which one works best for me. I'm not sure what lake i'm headed to but my choices are calaveras lake, canyon lake, belton/stillhouse, and navarro mills. decisions, decisions.....

How long do you let it ferment? How does the outside air temperature effect fermentation time? Thanks for all the input. Panfish

Right now with the temp. being cool, it takes a little longer. I figure up to 7 days in the winter months. During the spring and summer, it will sour faster. You can add a can of beer to help speed up the process. Some people us yeast or sugar. Now if your just taking it out and dropping it in the lake without any souring, it will take even longer. The average lake temps right now are in the 50's. Their is alot of ways to sour up faster, I just let mother nature taker of mine.

Hey Big Zee, when you fish these baited spots, do you use minnows or punch bait or what?
Thanks, Panfish

So are the range cubes a good choice to bring them in or are they not so great?

I usually use a punchbait. I like to fish them under slip cork about a foot off the bottom. Those cats are feeding off the scent, and the punch bait, it's just floating around with the grain. Some do use minnows, I would cast them out just a little further, the big one's might be out there. I would use the large minnows or if you can get your hands on some shad, they work great for the big cats in that area.
range cubes is a good choice to bring them in. I use range cubes when I'm searching for new hot spots. The cubes helps me to determine if this would be a good spot to bait out. Usually, if you catch a few cats there, I will bait out the hole and fish it the next day or so.

Thanks

Another post advised baiting spots shallow but he didn't say what he thinks is shallow. Do you pick spots of different depths or just in one range( for example 10 to 20 ft.) ? Sorry to ask so many questions and thanks for the details Panfish

No problem with the questions, glad to help. I usually bait a hole in the 4 ft to 12 ft range. This is year around. I look for areas with shallow water and deep water close by. Right now, I'm catching in a average of 6'to 8' of water. The water temp is 54 degrees. I'm mainly catching blue cats right now in the 6'to 8'water. Now in the 9' to 12' range, I'm catching channel cats. It's like this, when you bait a hole, it's like building a catfish restaurant. You pick a spot where they want to come and eat. Crappie guy's build motels with their brushpiles. The crappie come in, stay for a while then move on. Then they come back. Your building a restaurant for cats. The baited hole is your cafe sign, the chum is the buffet. Once you get that hole set up you will have a good spot.

We've "chummed" the bottom using milo and corn in a burlap sack tied to the dock. Works great.

Put it in 2 ltr bottles. Half full with corn. Fill with water. Leave in the sun with no lid. After a few weeks they are ready. Put on lid and poke holes in it with a knife. Anchor with a couple bricks. Toss in your honey hole. If this seems like too much work, but a bag of range cubes. Toss a few handfuls in several spots. Return to fish them in the order you tossed them out.
Heck, try a combo!

Thanks good info

I had to go fishing so bad on saturday i took the abuse of 20+ mph wind gusts. All in all on a 4 hour trip we managed to land 5 nice size cats. 3 in the 5 lb range and 2 that were 2/3 pounds. If i had more shad i probably could have caught several more. I was using 6-8 inch shad cut in half. We used the MILO only mix and it seemed to ok. We didnt catch huge numbers but we got some nice quality.