Ah! The good ol 22 rifle, yes!

To bad the ol carp isn't very goog for bait. They sure would be easy to harvest, and there so darn many of them.

On Limestone in the middle of summer you can hear the carp making that suction cup noise sucking the scum off the weeds like frogs chirping after a long rain. Nothing beats a slow day of bass fishing when you pop a few hundred of em with a 22.

If I am not mistaken that is not a legal mean of obtaining fish game or non-game protected or not. But I may be wrong...

Back in the 80's I knew/know someone who received a ciataiton has firearm was confiscated for doing that.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

bubblehead ... I won't use frozen bait any more .. I never seem to do very good on it after it's been frozen.

I carry a lite spinnin reel and 7 ft medium rod with 8 lb test in the boat and when I spot a school of buffalo on my fish finder or see them working the surface sometimes I'll use that rod with a 10/0 or 12/0 treble hook tied on the end with the points sharpened up so that they can't slide across my thumbnail without digging into the nail by just the weight of the hook at any angle and then the hook is sharp enough ... I'll throw the hook out past where I see the buffalo or carp and start reeling it back until I feel the hook snag on one of the fish and then I'll set the hook on it ... usually doesn't take me but a few tries before I get one but sometimes I'll just get a scale back ... done that several times where it'd just pluck a scale off the carp or buffalo. it's easy to tell if they're buffalo on your color fish finder as they'll send back a blue arch and it'll be pretty big if the buffalo are running about 8 to 10 lbs ... lots of times you can see them schooling on the surface but most of the time this time of year they'll be in fairly large school. sometimes on keystone in the late fall you'll hear thousands of them splashing around ... it's kinda weird too ... if one gets spooked that one will spook the rest of them and it's the gawd awefullest thing you ever heard in your life ... first time I heard them doing that I went over and thought that they were striper so I got out my striper fishin stuff and I would hit one and it'd feel like a bite but it was just my crankbait running into it ... then after a little while I decided to tie on a treble hook on my lite spinnin rig ... that was a blast cause just almost every cast I'd snag on they were so thick ... but that's how I catch them ... when you see carp working some shallows you can sight fish like that for them ... throw out past them a little ways and if your boat will go shallow enough you can see the carp's fin on the surface so that makes it a lot easier. I reel that light line across their back and when the hook hits them the fight is on ... that's a lot of fun hooking a 15 or so pound carp on 8 lb test in 8 inches of water. they put on a pretty good show.

Thanks Tiny for shareing,
Just about the time crappie quit spawning, or around late march the carp and I guess Buffalo come right under my boat house and suck the alge off the pilings and the rock rif-raf against my bulkhead. I'll give your method a try, sound like fun.

We fish around and in the boathouse during the early spring for crappie and get just ripped up on large Blues and Channels. We have had some large fish on that we just can't turn. So even during the summer the grand kids and I fish off the boathouse but generally with DK or minnows and will catch some cats, but generally smaller ones (good eating size, to 6lb). I wonder if by using cut bait (Carp/Buffalo)that things might get more interesting here at Richland /Chambers...

Maybe I'll get blasted for this, but when I want fresh buffalo or carp for bait, I'll just drop crumbled bread or similar bait off a boat dock & wait a bit - then use a castnet to haul up several at a time - interesting to pull 15-25 pounds of fish up in a net at one time. The Mrs Bairds thrift store in town sells a huge bag of old bread for $1 (something like 10-12 loaves), so the bait is cheap enough.

As far as effectiveness I'm not a very successful catfisherman compared to most on here, but buffalo seems to produce more hits than carp.

Unfortunately Texas doesn't allow using that method, for game or non-game fish:

� It is unlawful to take or attempt to take fish with one or more hooks attached to a line or artificial lure used in a manner to foul-hook a fish (snagging or jerking). A fish is foul-hooked when caught by a hook in an area other than the fish�s mouth.

Rodney

Yeah, they are quite catchable on rod and reel without snagging them as well. Maybe not as much during the spawn, since they obviously have other things on their mind, but the rest of the year you can definitely hook up with them the legal way hehe.

Some of the most simple and easy baits for carp and buffalo are sweet corn, or bread. Sweet corn is one of my favorites, just thread a few kernals onto a small hook, I use a number 6 Gamakatsu Octopus circle.

Small live carp also make excellent flathead bait.

Is that legal in Oklahoma? It's not in Texas.

I think the question that he asked me was how "I" acquired my buffalo or carp so I told him ... wasn't that I was suggesting this method or anything but it was just a reply to the question that bubblehead had for me.



Smile-n-nod, yep ... you can snag any non-gamefish in oklahoma ... you can actually snag gamefish but you gotta release them because you're not really trying to catch the gamefish that way but since it's legal to snag in oklahoma and you accidentaly catch a gamefish then it's okay if you release it. that is if it's not zoned off where you can't snag like below keystone where it's illegal to snag from keystone dam down to I-44 bridge in Tulsa which is about a 15 to 20 mile stretch of river. most dams you can't snag at above the 1000 ft barrier cable but you can below there. this is also how I used to tell what kind of fish I was seeing on my old monochrome garmin 240 ... if I seen fish stacked up in an area that I thought might be catfish I'd snag one to see what they were ...sometimes I'd get back just a scale but that was enough info as usually you can tell what species of fish it is by it's scale.

Cool information. Given that it allows snagging and noodling, Oklahoma seems pretty laid back with its regulations on how one can obtain fish. Thanks.

We've been through this many times in the past. You would have been better served searching the archives.

Anyway, here is the way I rate my bait for Lake Tawakoni:

1. Live shad
2. Cut shad
3. Dead minnows with their bellies slit. Multiple on a hook. (Channel cat only)
4. Sure-shot punch bait
5. Danny Kings punch bait
6. Chicken or duck livers, gizzards and hearts (Channel cat only)
7. Cut carp
8. Cut buffalo
9. Any of a variety of dough baits (BJ's is my favorite. Channel only)
10. Redneck's Soap Bait (Trot-line or jugs only. Good if you are having trouble with turtles.)

Of course, if you are targeting flatheads, you would have to add live bluegill and live gold fish at spots 1 and 2 then bump everything down.

And there have been times where the punch baits have outfished the shad 10 to 1. It doesn't happen very often but I always keep punch bait in the boat, just in case. I'll start with 2 rods with shad, 1 with Sure-shot, 1 with DK's blood, 1 with DK's shad and 1 with DK's garlic. Then I adjust as I go. Usually I end up fishing 100% with shad but sometimes not. The last time I went after channel cats seriously I ended up with 100% DK's garlic until I ran out then switched to DK's blood. We limited out for 3 people. Nothing would touch the shad or shad-based baits.

Now reading that last paragraph you will see it doesn't matter what all of us 'experts' tell you. You've got to be ready for what the fish want. It doesn't matter one bit what I tell you, all that matters is what the fish tell you!

Kevin

Carp have more blood in the meat.

I never fishing Buff vrs carp side by side. But shad are usually better. Carp do real good if the rivers are flowing real high and the water is muddy.
Capr get bad on the hook a lot faster than shad. Depending on water temp if nothing eats your cut carp after 2-4 hours it NEEDS to come off. Otherwise you will have a stinky mess and nothing will eat it but turtles.

If the small-medium cats are biting very good to excellent try carp IMO. They stay on the hook better plus the cats can find your bait faster.

Oklahoma is different in a few ways. Tiny knows what he is talking about 100% for his neck of the woods. Where ever you fish, be sure and know your fish in your area. The slightest difference can make a HUGE difference in your catch rate.
I actually debated moving to Oklahoma because the catfishing was better LOL.

we use both buff and carp as cut bait. Both seem to work equally well. I change baits after every cast to keep fresh oils and blood in the water. I like to keep them alive till i cut them so it is REALLY fresh. My buddy bleeds them into a bucket and then cuts the bait, then adds the blood to the cut bait inside a freezer bag the night before we fish. I dunno if all this is worth the effort but he does really well on his version and doesnt change bait as often.