Anyone out there use garlic in cut baits? I was given a bag of frozen shad with garlic and vanilla mixed in it. Guy who gave it to me says catfish love garlic. Wondering about anybody else's experiences with it......

Pokey

Catfishing Pokey
Hey welcome to the TFF. Are you the guy I met at Stamford a couple of months ago? If so how have things been. Catching and fish out there. What about the hog hunting, been doing any good?

welcome to the TFF. it would'nt suprise me if the catfish liked garlic. i have never fished with garlic flavored anything for catfish. so i cant say for sure.

Yes they do.

Thanks fellas. I am realy enjoying TFF. I have been reading the posts for a while now. Yes randy i am the same guy you met at stamford lake.I have been to busy fishing and working to hunt hogs for the last month or so. but i have been catching a few nice cats. I caught a 14 pound yellow cat and a couple in the 8 to 10 pound range and some real nice channels in the last 3 weeks all on rods and it is just getting better as the water warms up. how about you?

I have been do bass tournament here latley. We are still going to have too hook up for one of them canoe trips.

Randy we took the canoe a ways down hubbard creek last week and caught some big channel cats. we do need to get to gether and do it.

I once did an experiment with identical baits except that one batch was flavored with garlic while the other batch was flavored with anise. I seemed to do equally well on both batches. Some time later I repeated the experiment, but compared garlic with shrimp flavoring from packages of Ramen noodles. Again, I seemed to do equally well on both batches.

jerry did you happen to compare a bait with with out any extra flavor like plain shad?

Try the new zesty Italian!

No, unfortunately I didn't give plain bait a try alongside the treated baits. I will say that for years I jugged and trotlined the Arkansas River and Lake Dardanelle using fresh cut shad for bait. I never treated it in any way, nor did I ever bother taking a backup bait. Even today, I'd rather have fresh shad or skipjack. The problem is, I often have trouble getting fresh shad in the Little Rock area, and have to use a backup bait. That means something that can be stored.
Incidentally, on my last trip to Lake Dardanelle, I had taken along a package of salt pork to test out. My daughter had all the other bait, and was late getting there, so I baited all my jugs with the salt pork. There were two boatloads of us fishing there, and only one catfish was caught; a 18.5# blue on a jug baited with the salt pork. It wasn't treated in any way, but simply cut into 1/2" cubes, right out of the package.

I have used garlic for a few years and I found that I do better with it than without it. However I also use it on live bait and it causes the cats top bite more agressively. Makes for a fun day.