I went out to Ray Hubbard yesterday at 7am and stayed til 4. I fished four different locations of it from the banks and only caught one channel cat and that was while it was raining. I was using secret-7 in the dead red tubes and frozen shad. To be honest the dead red tubes aren't that great. The dip doesn't stay on at all. I used the yellow dip bait tubes made by hog wild and that's what I pulled my channel cat in on but I threw it back cause it had to a little less than a pound. I would've kept him if they were biting back to back. Some guys next to me were throwing a net and using fresh shad. They got bites and landed a few but no kodak moments but at least they got more than one. I've caught at a private location using the secret-7 but I dont think the public fish care for it too much. Who knows? I'll give it one more try. All in all, it was better than going to work. I'll be back out there bright and early Monday.

That is why I don't waste my money on prepared baits! You don't neeed something that stinks to high Heaven to catch Catfish. I use Shad only and it keeps my freezer full!

now, this is a good example of what I've talked about. People think there's fish anywhere where it's wet. they know there's fish there because it is wet. I mean ... if it's wet there's got to be fish there ... right? ...............Wrong!

Find the fish ... bait is secondary but if you find the fish you'll probably catch fish and most assuredly will catch them on live shad. I'm like peejtrav32..... I use fresh shad almost exclusively because I know the fish won't ever turn it down ... they're likely not to turn much down at all when ya throw it right on their noses. The thing is ... those public fishing areas get lots of fishing pressure on them and the only time you're going to catch a lot of fish in a public fishing area is when a pack of bluecat move into or by that area as they're moving through you can catch them but that's the thing ... they've got to be there or you're not going to catch any.

that was sort of funny bout "public fish vs non-public fish" in almost all cases though ... public fishinga areas aren't going to have fish in them but about 10% of the time ... sometimes 20% but hardly ever will there be fish there all the time ... only way that's not true is if someone were to sit out there and bait the hole every few hours for months and then keep everyone else out of there. then the public fishing area will accumulate a lot of fish but that's the only way it can ... if it remains public then it's easy access to the land locked fishermen that aren't willing to get out in the water and locate fish via a belly boat or something of that nature.

when I was bank fishing, if I couldn't cast 250yards I'd have figured out a way to get out where no one else fished and that'd be via one of those inner tube belly boats or something like that. because, it takes a long time for resident fish to move into an area and when they're constantly being pulled out of there just as soon as they make that area a new home then there's never going to be an accumulation of fish there except maybe when the second week of may rolls around and ya got a bunch of rocks along that public fishing area where they will try to come in and set up nests. I've went on too much on this subject as it's futile to get folks to understand that the fish aren't always there.

Ok tiny we all know that nothing works but shad and that fish aren't where water is. I'd like to see some landfish . Honestly, I didn't chum none of those areas I went to and I should have, considering they were at least a mile apart. 250 yrds casting? Who can do that?

Do you know some good spots at Hubbard?

i think he was saying he can cast that far & if he couldn't he would find some other way to get out past the normal casting distance when fishing from the bank

yeah, like a boat

I can do that ... my longest recored cast was 258 yds in competition but that was after I'd driven 850 miles and I did that cast with tennis elbow in both arms and a messed up shoulder ... I could cast 300+ yds when conditions were right here at home where I didn't have to travel a long ways. I don't travel very well with my health being what it is ... my legs swell and my back gives me a lot of trouble ... my normal regimine of medications include 2/day 60mg morphine and 160 per month 10/325 percacets, doc is going to have to increase the morphine next appointment as I was taking two 80mg oxycontin per day and the morphine doesn't help nearly as well as the oxycontin ... that's probably cancer level pain meds or more but that's what I have to take just to get out and do what I do.

but my point is this ... the big percentage of catfishermen think there's fish anywhere there's water ... I mean if it's wet they think the fish are there all the time and that's hardly ever the case ... what I'm saying is that fishermen will go out and fish in spots where there are no fish and they will throw all sorts of baits out and sometimes a fish will come through and hit some obscure bait they've got in the water and they'll say ... well this cigarette butt caught a fish when nothing else would and it just so happens that that was the only fish that happened into the area they were fishing and they go home and the wife will ask how'd you do?and the fisherman will say the fish just weren't biting today when fish are always biting ... I think I've proven that as I fish one of the most heavily pressured lakes in oklahoma and manage to offer the 50 lb guarantee and meet that guarantee about 95% of my trips. this is because I know several methods of locating fish and I fish where the fish are at any given point of the day. if you fish where the fish are then you'll catch fish on just about any kind of bait ... you'll catch a few anyhow or you may catch a lot but if you will focus more on fish locating than some hocus pocus bait thinking it'll do well when nothing else can then that'll never happen ... the reason it'll never happen is because you won't catch fish if they aren't there to be caught. highly pressured fishing spots are hard to catch fish at unless you're prepared to cover a lot of water from the shore. it only takes about 15 minutes to find out if there's fish in a spot because if they're there then they're going to feed on fresh cut shad. that may be the case with the prepared baits but I use only shad and sometimes bluegill or cut smallmouth buffalo but that's another point. if you find the fish then you'll catch them but if I were still bank fishing I'd be still using my surf rods and casting shad heads out to different areas of 200 yds or more to get out past where most bank fishermen cast and see if I can't locate a pack of bluecat on out there a ways ... that's what I did below keystone dam because I was able to cast further than anyone else down there by about double what they were casting and I could get out to where the fish were instead of inside 100 yds or so where everyone else casted that wasn't catching fish and I caught a lot of fish down there just about every time I went just because I could cast twice as far as everyone else. I could cover a lot of water that way too ... if they weren't biting near the #1 gate on the dam I'd move my rod after about 15 minutes and hit the #2 gate ... if they had an open gate out there aerating the water then I knew the fish would be out by the open gate so I'd cast out to it ... I could hit the dam as far as the #7 sluice gate and that was about 3/4 of the way across it which was around 280 yds ... at the end of the day however I'd only be able to hit about 240 because casting that far many times takes a lot out of ya. but anywhere else ... if I were fishing public fishing areas I'd be looking for ways to get out further than anyone else on those flats out on ray hubbard or tawakoni or I'd wade it with a stringer and a thrownet in hand and a pocket full of hooks and sinkers and go catch me a mess of fish rather than just sitting in one spot casting 25 to 50 ft out just like every other person that comes down there and casting to the same spot over and over again with different baits thinking that I just gotta figure out what they're biting on ... the reason they're not biting is because they're not there probably 99% of the time. only occasionally will you find that they're not biting as well on shad as they would cut carp or cut buffalo ... I've seen it on very rare occasions that some other bait would outfish cut shad but that's like one week out of the year but I'd try that when I could just to see ... like if I located fish and they wouldn't bite my cut shad .. well ... like they did on my last trip out ... we had a bad front move through ... massive storms and then the day we went fishin we had a solid easterly wind ... I found lots of fish but they were very innactive ... two days before they were swirling around out there and lots of fish splashing the surface and all that and yesterday evening the water was like glass out there ... absolutely no fish activity at all on the surface and lots of fish huddled up and spooky .. I finally figured out what worked a little bit and that was butterfly shad ... cutting shad so that the two fillets remain attached to the head and gut sack leaves a lot more scent in the water and the fish would hit those when they wouldn't hit fillets or heads or chunks but that's only one day out of the year that that has happened to me and it was mostly because of the fish's innactivity because of the front and east wind the following day. but what I try to get across is ya gotta find the fish instead of just assuming they're where ever you're fishing and ya just gotta figure out what they're biting on. it's that plain and that simple. I don't know how to explain it any better than that either. but you should never think that the fish just aren't biting either because they are ... they're always biting ... you just have to find them and if you haven't caught a fish in 15 minutes and you've got 3 or 4 poles casted out with cut shad on them or cut bluegill or cut anythign that's native to the waters your'e fishing and you haven't caught anything in that spot you're at for say 30 minutes and you've got good fresh, native baits on then there aren't any fish there. that's the best I can explain all that too ... it's not a matter of what they're biting on or anything like that. it'll be the same with your prepared baits ... if you're not catching any fish on that stuff and your other poles that have fresh cut bait on them then you need to move to another spot and cover more water if you want to be successful at catfishing. sitting and waiting might catch you a fish once in a while but I ain't got the patience for that sitting and waiting stuff any more ... even when I locate some big fish I'll give them 30 minutes ... I did that just a short while back .. like three trips ago ... I found some really big fish that looked like there were a couple of them that'd reach 30 lbs and I knew they were cats too because I can tell the difference when I locate fish as to whether they're scaley fish or catfish. I found a spot that had big boulders and there were two fish there that were 30 lbs or better and several 20's and a few smaller fish ... we threw some cut and live shad at them but they may have been suspended or whatever but they didn't hit in 30 minutes ... then I got some clients to go out with me that fished that spot the night after and caught a 31 and a 25 in that same spot just the night before they hired me to take them out. they wanted to learn some fish location methods and how to keep their shad alive and how to find shad and I showed them all that stuff they wanted to know about on their trip but they sat in that spot and waited there all night until the fish decided to feed and I won't wait like that just because my trips aren't set up like that ... if my clients aren't getting bit about every 5 minutes then I feel I"m not doing my job and will relocate more fish so that it'll keep them excited about watching those rods or listening for the clickers go off on some trips. whichever they like to do but I don't normally let them use the clickers until we've gotten at least 50 lbs in the boat because the clickers cause a lot of fish loss sometimes. other times it doesn't matter about the clickers but that's another subject. I'm just rambling now but I probably shouldn't be explaining this anyhow since I'm wanting to start tournament fishing ... I shouldn't be trying to explain this stuff anyhow ... should I? hahaha ...just kiddin. but I'm not telling you this stuff to upset ya or anything like that ... just trying to explain that the fish aren't always where it's wet or where there's water due to fishing pressure in public areas or what not ... I might even send balloons floating across the lake on the wrong side just so I can get out further than everyone else or to cover more water because balloons will cover lots of water but only in the direction the wind is blowing. usually that only works best when the area you're fishing is narrow and you're wanting to fish the other side ... I've done that quite a lot when I was bank fishing and caught a lot of fish that way ... even made remote controlled boats to tote my line out some 300+ yds with a remote controlled release so I could drop my baited line just anywhere I wanted it .. I was even going to set up a remote TV link so that I could mount a fish finder in that rascal and send back a tv signal to the bank so that I could drop my bait right on top of the fish or around structure but just shortly after I thunk this idea up I bought me a new boat instead. that decision made me sell all my bank fishin stuff so that I could trick my boat out with all the latest gadgets and what not ... even sold my tractor to get me a new fish finder and trollin motor but that's another subject yet again. you can continue to just think the fish just aren't biting if you want as this will be the last time I try to explain it just because it doesn't seem to be accepted as well as I thought it might be. good fishin to ya.

i hope like hell you don't drive after taking all those meds!!!!

Wow. now that has to be the record for the longest post on TFF, ever.
Who had the record book?
Just dont tell all of the bait companies that free shad works better. The economy is already in bad shape. All we need is a bunch of stink bait workers out of work.

they don't effect me any more like that, mark. I've been taking them so long that I never get a buzz from them and I have to take them in order to move around. normally I'll wake up about 5 am and in a terrible way as my meds wear off about then as I'll take them at 5am and 5pm ... the morphine is time released and that was the way the oxycontin is also. the oxycontin said 12 hour but it usually wore off about 8 hours and then that's when I had to take the percacets ... this is only when I'm fishing that I have to take those ... I mean HAVE to take them ... I still take them when I haven't done anything the previous day but I could go without them as I have just a few months ago ... my doc appointment got messed up when the doc had a family emergency so I was about 4 days without any which I tolerated okay as I wasn't doing anything at all but laying around the house. but that's the reason my doc has me taking them ... to keep me as active as possible else my health will really go south if I were to get innactive ... that's how I got the heart problems and pneumonia was by letting my pain keep me from getting out and doing anything. severe back and leg pain due to the back injury as I never got it operated on because I was too big ...doc said that since I"m still walking or able to walk he's not touching it so I was left with the pain and no help other than pain meds.

Creed ... I seen that too and said ... holy [censored]! that's a long post ... didn't seem all that long when I was typing it cause that box ya type in is only bout 2inches by 4 inches ... hahaha.

Tiny, in your observance I'm gonna put your most spoken words as my signature so you will never have to say them again.

I for one don't expect fish to be wherever or whenever I show up. I think you missed the part in my post where I said I changed locations several times. Only thing is I'm sure I would've had different results with some good ol chum but I didn't take my trusty bucket with me. Some guys about 30yrds next to me weren't throwing their lines 250yrds and they were reeling in some nice fish but of course they were using shad which we know is the only bait you believe in. That's all well and good but it wouldnt be fishing if it wasn't a challenge and with that being said that let's me know I'm over my vent.

Wow, that sparked one heck of a vent!!! I just don't care for the smell of stink and punch baits, makes me gag and then other folks look at me like I am some kinda freak!

I do agree with Tiny, we have a lot in common as far as our methods of locating and catching fish along with bait choice.
You have taken the time to understand the nature and behavior of catfish not catfishing!!! Understand your prey to every aspect and you won't have to rely on luck.

Catcatcher
As far as bank fishing Hubbard, try the rocks along Miller road bridge and railroad. Evening and early morning seem to produce the best but, you will have to outfish the regulars.

I agree...what tiny said!

Also...if you're in Richardson there are some great spots you can get to by bank on Lavon. More park land and if you don't mind a lil hike you can get to some spots that hold fish. Play the wind, a good breeze(10-20mph)coming in to shallow water up around one of the north ends and you should do ok.

Tiny is right ...again!!