I have a pond loaded with small tilapia that'll all die in a few weeks. I'm trying to figure out how to harvest, cook/grind/dry? and turn them into some sort of catfish bait. Any ideas?

I would just fillet them, cut in 3 to 6 inch pieces and freeze. Vacuum sealing works the best. Frozen bait is definitely not as good as fresh, but I have caught lots of fish on frozen cut bait.

Tilapia is great blue cat bait

Find you a plant that makes cheese, and ask if you can get some of their stuff that gets thrown away. They have stuff that doesn't make or pass inspection daily and throw away large amounts. Then you get you some cat tails, warm the cheese up to get it thin, mix the cheese up with some crushed up tilapia, then as a thickener, bust up the cat tails and mix till you get the thickness you like.

I was told this is how one of the cheese flavored catfish baits are made. They take a trailer to a cheese plant in New Mexico to get the cheese, then they go to Corpus to get sardines, so your just going to use tilapia. The cheese will probably be thin enough you may not need to heat it up, mix it 50/50 and thicken as needed.

Anyone remember Quanah stink bait? It's main ingredient was ground minnows.

Great ideas! Most years they become bird food as they seek warmth up shallow on sunny days. The herons gather 'round for a feast.

When I catch several large (5”-7”) shad, I immediately put them in a small, dedicated cooler with alternating layers of ice and table salt. They will get rock hard but not freeze and they don’t lose their slime. If you keep it cold, they’ll last several days. For long term storage, after the ice/salt treatment, I put them in freezer bags with some of the brine. If your freezer is set to 0°, they won’t freeze but they’ll stay good for weeks. They’ll stay firm and the fish bite just the same. I use the same method for carp and buffalo so it should work with tilapia.

Make sure the ice is non-iodized. Also you can use the 3:2:1 cure that salmon/steelhead fishermen us out west: Borax, sugar and salt.

Made some "strawberry jello chicken" stuff....but with fillets of small tilapia yesterday. Headed to the outlet area @ Lake o' The Pines this evening to test it out.

They really liked it. Better than night crawlers.