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Unbelievable (but True) Bait Secrets

Finding the best fishing lures and bait is an art. 

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Fish and Cut Bait with These Strange Lures

Gita M. Smith
November 12, 2021
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For eons, we humans have raided our gardens, pantries, and tackle boxes in quest of foolproof fish bait. Read on to hear some true unbelievable bait stories from the Deep South…

The Man Who Put His Heart Into Fishing

Find them a stack of Bibles and some Alabama fishermen will swear that Toad Smith once used a piece of his own heart to catch a blue catfish. “When he had heart bypass surgery, Ol’ Toad asked the doctor to save a piece heart that had been removed, ” recalls John Phillips of Fairfield, Alabama, author of Masters’ Secrets of Catfishing. “Well, Toad put it into a jar with some Berkley’s Strike, a real strong-smellin’ catfish lure. Soon as he was well enough, he baited up a couple of hooks with pieces of his heart, and before you know it, snap, a blue cat takes the bait. Toad bragged for years he was the only man in America to catch a fish with his own heart.”

Fish Tales from the Road

Have you ever run out of your usual fare while the fish were still biting? Take a hint from Danny Fields of Oak Grove, Alabama. Dejected but not defeated, he scooped up a dead ‘possum from the side of the road near his cabin, cut the freshly killed marsupial into bite-size chunks, and baited his lines. “Don’t you just know the ‘possum meat caught more and bigger catfish than any of his regular baits?” Phillips says.

Like Fields, highly rated fishing guide Lomax Dunham found himself without bait one day on Alabama’s Lake Martin. “We ran out of minnows and crickets, but I had a bag of marshmallows on the boat,” Dunham recalls. “We baited our lines with marshmallows and caught lots of fish.” Dunham has been known to catch boatloads of catfish on unusual baits.

The Cleanest Way to Fish

Dunham is also a believer in Ivory Soap as bait. He says he  “cut it up in small cubes and left it in the water on our weighted lines overnight.” But Mike Bolton, outdoors editor of The Birmingham News, says that Ivory Soap pales in comparison to Palmolive Gold when it comes to catching fish. Bolton went fishing with Jimmy Bedwell, a barber from Livingston, Alabama, who melts down whole cases of the fragrant golden soap in black, cast-iron pots in his backyard. “You have to get the soap soft enough to sink your hooks into it. Put out your lines, and when you come back the next day, they’ll be full of catfish,” promises Bolton.

You must remember that there’s plenty of salt in the sea to take with the tales your fellow fishermen tell.
–John Hersey, American author (1914–93)

What is your most unusual bait or fishing technique? Tell us below.

See the Fishing Calendar for best days to fish by the Moon.

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Comments

patrick diamond (not verified)

1 year 7 months ago

We use liver that has been in a mason jar for a couple of days. It kind of firms up and begins to turn a little green and stink but the fish love it.

Lori A Gordon (not verified)

1 year 7 months ago

Back in the 60/70's my Grandfather would come from Missouri to hunt and fish in Wyoming and we would take marshmallows and die them with red food coloring and even put garlic on them to catch trout and if he ran out of sinkers or bobbers he would just tie a rock to the line and use a cigarette butt tied on the line for the bobber. Years later when the lake was drained we found some of his lines still tied to rocks.

Ed Stowell (not verified)

2 years 7 months ago

I had a good friend, he's gone to be with the Lord, but he had told me several times of incidents when he used Bar-S Hot Dogs as bait. Mike was an amazing man of God. He was diabetic, almost blind, wheelchair bound, suffering from frequent heart attacks but the Lord, "delivered him from them all."
Here is one story, my favorite story, he often shared: One particular day he got all his tackle and gear together and was ready to leave when a little voice told him to take some hot dogs along. He thanked the Lord for this, for he would need a snack to keep his sugar levels right.
With everything right, he headed down the road on his motorized wheelchair, to a spot to fish off a bridge. As the story goes, no matter what bait he used and normally had good success with, wasn't working that day. Well, he decided to take a break, have a snack, and talk with Jesus about fishing (which he figured He was an authority on the subject). As he was snacking on a couple of cold (previously cooked) hot dogs, he heard that little voice again, saying, "Use some of those hot dogs for bait." Delighted at the thought, he eagerly cut the pieces of hot dogs into wheels, then into quarters, and baited his hook with one quarter piece. From that day on, previously cooked hot dogs became his preferred bait. His catch of fish that day was far beyond his normal take home! And he praised the Lord, singing His praises loudly, all the way home! Praise the Lord for His inestimable gifts. I can't wait to hear the fish stories of him and Jesus!

Linda Cassady-Sims (not verified)

5 years 8 months ago

My dad used to take me fresh water fishing in the creek that ran behind the family farm in Petersburg, West Virginia and we would find our own bait by turning over the creek rocks. The bait looked like a black cyanided, lots of legs and a set of pinchers that could give you a nasty bite. It was great bait but for the life of me I can't remember the name of the critters. Can you help?

Lora (not verified)

3 years 7 months ago

Helgamytes.