I have been noticing a lot of chatter and getting a lot of emails through the “ask a question” page about catfish punch baits and other cheese based catfish based and people still looking for information on these types of catfish baits and how to manage them in the heat.
As I covered in Catfish Punch Bait 101, if your bait is too thin, the very first step you should always take is to cool it off, as many times this will resolve the issue for you immediately, but there are expections. Many times when exposed to extreme heat repeatedly these types of baits start to get thinner over time and even cooling them off will not return them to their original state.
While just one or two exposures to heat will not typically cause these issues repeated exposures often will. You can typically tell when there is an issue because the bait gets very thin, will often have liquid (oil) separate within the container, it will turn darker in color and will ultimately not stay on the hook very well.
There is a common misconception that I hear time and time again that different brands of catfish punch baits are not good or have problems because they will not stay on the hook for multiple casts. My response to this is that I have NEVER seen a cheese based catfish bait that will stay on the hook for multiple casts in extreme heat (or even normal temperatures), and quite honestly you don’t want them to.
At the end of the day the goal is for the bait to stay on the hook well enough to cast a reasonable distance (not long one hundred yards casts) and for an amount of bait to remain on the hook if you don’t get a strike within a reasonable time frame.
If you are expecting to be able to cast any cheese based products long casts, or cast them repeatedly over and over again without re-baited you’re going to be disappointed with any product that you use.
The very nature of the success of these catfish baits is because when they are cast in the water they begin to break down and leave a scent trail in the water, which in turns draws in fish (kind of like chumming with punch bait through the process of fishing). This is in fact so effective that when I bait hooks with catfish punch bait I don’t worry about removing a lot of excess bait, that I know when casting (or when it hits the water) is going to fly off the hook. By design, this “extra” bait is going to help with drawing any fish into the area when it hits the water and starts breaking down.
Going into using any product with a reasonable expectation will make you much happier using that product.
So if you have gotten into this situation where your catfish punch bait or dip bait has gotten too hot repeatedly, or honestly is not thick enough for your liking right off the bat you have an option to correct the problem.
I mentioned in catfish punch bait 101 thickening these baits with cattails. In addition to the questions I have been getting through the ask a question page about these baits being too thick or too thin I have been getting a lot of questions about the use of cattails (and other products) to thicken these baits.
I have heard (and have even used) a number of different things to thicken them over the years with everything from torn up pieces of toilet paper, dryer lint, cotton batting and a probably a few others I have forgotten and they all have worked to some degree but cat tails have hands down been the absolute best.
Just about every manufacturer out there uses cat tails in the manufacturing process (or at least the small mom and pop manufacturers like Sure Shot Catfish Punch Bait), and if you examine most of these baits closely you will see they have cat tails in them. The reason being is because they work well, and are readily available (and free).
One of the questions I received was asking if you should just cut the stalks and stick them down in the bucket of bait so immediately after I sent my whooooooooaaaaa nelly email stopping this guy from ruining his bucket of bait I decided I better do a step by step with instructions and information on exactly what to do with the cat tails when thickening catfish baits.
Where To Find Cat Tails
Cat tails are readily available (at least around here) and probably one of those things that you don’t notice but when you start looking for them you realize they are everywhere. Generally anywhere there is a water you are going to find good concentrations of them. They typically grow anywhere there is constant standing water in very shallow areas like on the edges of lakes, rivers and creek beds.
This time of year the cat tails are still growing and live so when you go to get them the stalks will be green and the “pods” will be dark brown. The pods are actually what you are looking for and the bigger you can find them the better. Small ones will work but the large ones (being an inch or two in diameter) are less work and will work even better, but I have used them the size of my pinky finger with no problems.
Once you locate some you probably want to take a knife or some sort of clippers (I just hijack my wife’s garden shears) because when the cat tails are still growing they are difficult to just break or tear off. I generally just go to my desired location and grab a couple of big handfuls of the stalks and pull them over towards me and then take the clippers and cut the pods off.
I usually just do this once per year and fill up a plastic five gallon bucket, and this typically lasts me (and everyone else I know) all summer long and through the winter (if needed).
Now, one word of caution about going to cut these. Snakes love hanging out inside of these reed beds in the water, so be VERY careful and alert when you are doing this. I went just the other day to cut some cat tails so I could have some to demonstrate this article and had two water moccasins come out after me during the process. I don’t like snakes at all so I am probably overly cautious but once one of these big water moccasins comes jumping out at you it will put you on the alert.
Using The Cattails To Thicken Catfish Bait
When you cut the cat tails while they are still growing (while the stalks are green) the pods will be a rich dark brown color and they will be very hard. If you push your fingernail into them they will be very firm and you will barely make an indentation in them when you push on them.
Just take them and put them in a bucket or lay them out on the ground and let them sit in the sun for a few days. It will not take long (usually within a day or so) and you will notice them changing colors to a lighter brown color. When the entire pod has changed colors to this lighter brown color then they are dry and can be used. You can easily tell be pushing into them and they will feel “squishy” and if you pinch them and pull on them parts of the pods will come off in your fingers.
Now if you take this and rub it into your fingers you will see that it turns to “fuzz”. This fuzzy stuff is what you want to stir into your bait to thicken it.
If you need to add a lot of fuzz to the bait just take one of the pods and hold it over your bucket of bait and pull the fuzz from the pod. You can grip the entire thing firmly and turn it often times and the whole pod will come apart and drop down into the catfish bait. Now all you have to do is stir it into the catfish bait into it gets back to the desired consistency. Just make sure that you add these in small amounts because if you add too much you will have problems loading the hook with the bait.
Take some of your extra pods of bait and put them in a zip-lock bag and keep them with you when fishing and you can add more if or when you need to thicken your bait again.
Here is a step by step walk through on video to show you the process.
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