What Do Dip And Stinkbaits Simulate In A Natural Environment?

Ron Vetter, Mazon, Illinois: "My favorite fish to catch are catfish and carp. Using cut bait or minnows for bait makes sense because that's what catfish usually feed on, but I have great success with dip or stinkbaits. What in their natural environment would this simulate? Also, the cats I catch in local rivers and cooling lakes have a lot of green moss in their digestive tracts. Why is this? I never find fish in their guts -- sometimes a crayfish or snails, but that's it. Thanks for your time.

"P.S. I find it odd that carp I once raised in a big tank would eat anything from cereal to homemade doughballs to fish-feed pellets, yet when I gave them each of the Berkley carp bait flavors, not only would they not eat them, but they actually bolted away. The Berkley rep I spoke to had no comment on this."

Despite a face only a mother could love, catfish are marvellously well adapted to the lakes, rivers, and reservoirs in which we find them. And while most species of catfish, channel cats in particular, eat other fish to a fault, fish are not the only thing they'll dine upon. In their book, Freshwater Fishes of Canada, Scott and Crossman document the following food items found in the stomachs of channel cats: mayflies, caddisflies, chironomids, molluscs, crayfish, crabs, green algae, larger water plants, tree seeds, and even birds.

The fact that catfish -- and carp -- eat vegetation often surprises many anglers, but when one considers how well they often thrive in their environments, it's apparent they're well adapted to eating almost anything that contains nutrients. I should also mention that the fish they do devour don't necessarily have to be alive, one of the reasons that fishing is often so good below hydroelectric dams and generating stations. The fish simply scavenge on ground-up pieces of fish caught in the turbines or swept over the dam. Catfish also have phenomenal senses of smell and taste -- their barbels for instance, are loaded with taste buds -- so even in a muddy or chocolate-brown-colored silty river system, they can easily find your bait. That's why you've experienced so much success using dipbaits and stinkbaits.

By the way, the reason you rarely find fish in their stomachs is because they can digest the soft flesh quickly, especially in warm summer conditions, when their metabolism is working at full speed. Crayfish and snails, on the other hand, have exoskeletons, much harder to digest and which remain in the fishes' stomachs long after the soft fleshy material has been digested.

I can't answer your question about why the carp refused to eat the Berkley baits. Perhaps you had conditioned them to eat a specific set of foods items in your aquarium, or perhaps your fish didn't have a sweet tooth for the flavor.

Five-time national award winning writer, Gord Pyzer, is a field editor for In-Fisherman magazine. Widely regarded as Canada's most technical fisherman, he has a Master's degree in Natural Resource Management. Formerly a senior manager with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, he now operates a fishing and deer hunting guide service on Lake of the Woods and is a keen bass tournament angler.