Catfish On Shinners

[kbbgood]

Has anyone had good luck on shiners for catfish on the Missouri? Called around Herrmann trying to find live bait and all I can find is worms and shiners.

[stlfisher]

Not on the Missouri, but when I fish for catfish I find the biggest shiners I can. I always had better luck on them then stink baits etc and often this was fishing right next to guys using those baits. I think larger minnows are overlooked for catfish bait.

[Blazerman]

I fish the Meramec all the time with shiner minnows and catch plenty of cats and I can tell you a little trick I learned when using them. I always use a trap to get the minnows in the river and sometimes they don’t do real well in the bait bucket. Because of that I ended up using freshly dead minnows and caught a bunch of good size channels on them.

I put 2-3 on a hook with a slip sinker and throw it out. I would also throw a big live one out for flatheads. The dead ones will get channels and the live ones can get both channels and flatheads. I actually now let a few die and use them first because they work so well.

[mic]

Just get them from the same rivers you fish in.

[ciRe]

Bluegill and goldfish is all I have used this year. Caught some nice ones including a 40lb flat and biggest blue was 62lbs.