Cincinnati catfishing Bait Yes! I did say French Fries as bait! I have caught channel cats up river and right in the downtown Cincinnati area on FRENCH FRIES. I did read posting from a guy that caught a large Flathead on fries by one of the restaurants on the river in Newport Ky. Any fast food place that sells fries works. If possible pick some up when heading to your spot so they are on the warm side. That allows the grease to get into the water to make a scent trail easier. I had great success in February 2004 using chunks of steak for bait. I caught 8 bluecats with it, largest being 13 pounds. It did not matter if it was raw or grilled with seasoning. So if you have some scrapes left over from a cookout just put it in a small freezer bag. If you have a friend that works in a restaurant that has steak, ask them to make up doggie bag of scraps for you. It stays on the hook very well when casting and the fish have a hard time just pecking it off the hook. All of those eight fish were hooked, none swallowed it. So I was able to released them to grow bigger for the next season.

De-Mystifying Fly Fishing I remember the first time I saw someone fly fishing. I think I was five years old. My father, my sister and I had back packed to a remote alpine lake. My trusty Zebco with the closed face push button casting reel, cork bobber and jar of Puatzke's, among my gear I couldn't live without. Positioned on a log vigilently eyeing my bobber for movement, a one-man raft paddled past, and in no time the occupant was making wild movements with the longest fishing pole ever. Mesmerized, I watched his graceful movements like he was a black belt martial arts expert. When my father came to check on me, I asked about him, my dad said he was fly fishing, a couple of other fishermen gathered to discuss this exotic art. All agreed it was a superior art form requiring more time than any one of us had to learn, let alone master. I tried to study my bobber with earnest after that, but it never seemed to hold the same pull it once had.

Confidence in Fly Fishing Three quick stories come to mind illustrate this. First off let me say there have been plenty of times when I have been on both sides of the confidence equation. A few years ago, I was steelheading with a couple of fly fishing buddies. Unlike me, though there guys weren't purists. And we were using terminal gear. Although were just dead-drifting jigs, very similar to fly fishing, I felt about as coordinated as a monkey performing brain surgery. As the day wore on more and more steelies were caught. Huge steelies, the biggest I had ever seen! None by me. I could feel my confidence shrinking. And I mean my confidence in all kinds of things, like being able to read the river, being able to detect a strike. Things that had no connection to me using unfamiliar gear. The pressure inside my head built, until I HAD to catch a fish. I didn't catch one fish that day, although I finally had a strike, and set the hook so hard I jerked it right out of the fish's mouth. And I fished longer and harder than anyone else on the trip.

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