No, caught over three hundred pounds in four hours last Friday. They only thing they were trying to figure out, was how to get that spoon in their mouth. I never fish with live, or cut bait for Blues either.

I have been having the same problems with hookups recently. I have a small to medium circle hook with either a small perch or minnow attached held in a pipe rod holder with rebar to stick into the ground. The rod will bend over into a big U and then go slack, i reel it back in and the bait is gone...i guess i am going to have to do what my dad always yelled at me about and just hold the rod, maybe i will catch more fish holding the rod and setting it myself

Electroreceptors sense voltage, not magnetism. Living organisms do produce some electrical current/voltage in muscle tissues, hence the reason LIVE bait usually works better than dead/artificial.

Please cite the source for your information, or at least explain your position if you have some expertise in this area.
I really want to keep this as scientic as possible, although if someone has actual hands on experience, that would be most welcome.
I googled this topic, this was the 1st hit. There were many.

Neirofiziologiia. 1975;7(4):434-6.

[Magnetic field perception by the electroreceptor system of fish]
[Article in Russian]

Andrianov IuN, Broun GR.

Abstract
Responses of 40 neurons in the acoustic-lateral area to electrical stimuli and changing magnetic induction were studied in the Black Sea skates Dasyates (Trigon) pastinaca. The smallest magnetic induction change which caused a response was 0.8 Gs/s, proving the possibility of perception of the geomagnetic field by electroreceptors of a slow-moving fish. Opposite reactions to magnetic stimulation were observed in neurons responding to electrical stimuli in the same way but connected with receptors of the right and left sides of the fish. Short-circuiting between the inner medium of the fish and the sea water showed that the induction current circuit is isolated from the inner medium and, apparently, formed by the ampullary canals.

PMID: 1207825 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

But magnetic fields induce electric currents...

That's right.
Another thing that happened that I failed to mention was I started cutting a perch in half, and ran the hook through his lower jaw, and up through the top of his head.
I put a bell on the rod. Usually if something so much as pecks on a bait, I'll hear it.
Twice I have reeled in only to find an empty hook, and I never heard so much as a ding. How in heck could a fish get something like that off of a hook, with no disturbance, is beyond me.

Either way, I'm a tinkerer and an experimenter. I'm gonna give it a try. I've already gone to the trouble to wrap my hooks and wire leaders, figure I'll try it out tonight.
I figure the worse that can happen is I'll get skunked, which will not be the first time.

LRS
I spent 6 years fishing PINS 3 to 5 dys a week.
No tape on my hooks - I was running 20 to 25 ft steel leader at times- I have seen many sharks caught down there & 95% of them were on big bare hooks & uncoated steel leader-The tape can prevent a hook set- I remember when that fad started. Most of the sharkers I know don�t use tape but if you think it will help go for it. I suspect the reason you are missing fish it the way you are placing you bait on the hook. Care must be taken when using large baits as the hook will imbed in the bait-.
best of luck-
.

Thanks TEW, I am a greenhorn, but getting better.
How would you hook a live perch?
In addition, how do you hook a shad.
Not a big gizzard shad, just a regular size threadfin?

LRS,

I applaud your interest in wishing to learn more on this topic. My Knowledge on the topic is limited however I do know a few things:

Yes some fish especially sharks are able to sense electrical fields. I have seen this demonstrated and in the demonstration the test subjects ( sharks) were ATTRACTED to the fields.

There is nothing currently known to man that will STOP a magnetic field. If you do a search for magnetic shielding you will inevitably find "nu mental". I purchased a bit of this for experimentation purposes. I found It will shield a magnetic field to a degree though It actually does not shield it, the Nu metal disperses it over the surface of the shield. For my purposes it took 5 layers thinly spaced by 1/64th balsa wood to shield two magnets from one another where they would each "attract" to the shield even though they were facing each others similar poles ( they were repelling if the shield was not present. This shield was approximately 1/2" thick

Metal fish hooks are used with great success...There is no evidence present that would suggest a large improvement would come from shielding any electrical or magnetic field present in a fish hook.

In short, unless you want to use a plastic hook you are going to have to accept any fields put out buy the metal hook. The good news is that it probably doesn't matter one bit.

This is why I whittle all of my catfish hooks out of bois d'arc.

missed only 3 hookups in a week? I'd say you're doing pretty well unless you only got 3 bites. anyhow, wrapping electrical tape around a magnetized object won't change it's magnetism. in order for your hook to become magnetized it has to be wrapped in electrical wire and arched across a battery or has to be in contact with a magnet. magnetic metal is totally different from electro impulses that are given off by forage fish also and those electro impulses "attract" the fish instead of repel them. so this thing you're wondering about is total nonsense. if your fishing success isn't what you think it should be, it's not the hook's fault if you only missed three bites in 7 days ... use common sense when fishing for catfish and you'll do well. there are some folks that can go to a lake that they've never fished before and put up big numbers of fish everywhere they go even if they've never fished that body of water before. I doubt it's because those folks de-magnetize their hooks.

Here's the secret to successful catfishing ... learn to locate the fish before you ever throw a line in the water. don't fish to find fish. locate them first then throw cut n live shad at them. cut bait is always best when the bait is alive when you cut it too. if you've located fish and thrown your baits out and haven't caught a fish in 15 to 20 minutes then those fish aren't active .... reel in and find fish elsewhere ... I've got a system I go by and I start out whereever I locate fish first and if they're not active I'll keep moving shallower until I find the active fish. the shallower you fish the more likely the fish are going to be actively feeding because that's what they're in the shallows to do .... "TO FEED"! hope this helps.