Did I miss it or have you posted any pictures of your snags?

Use the hot dog to catch some perch. Use those on your trot line.

Checked the line this morning, struck out again. This time with 5 hooks with Ivory soap, and the rest with hot dogs. Most hot dogs gone from the hooks. All the soap gone. I baited again with the dough this morning, that doesn't stay on, because I've caught two with that. But definitely going to have to come up with a new plan. The two catfish were quite tasty. Need more.

Any sort of dough bait or soap is going to come off your hooks. The best bait is live perch pretty much bar none. You can catch them super easily with split shot, a tiny hook, and piece of worm. Half the fun for me running a trot line growing up was catching all the bait!

2nd best option imo is cut bait. I really like using cut carp. Mullet, shad, and perch will work too.

3rd best option imo (and still a really good option) is to get beef liver or beef or chicken hearts. I am a huge fan of beef liver. It stays on the hook well and catches tons of fish for me. You can buy a pound of it for ~$3 at HEB. If you go to kroger you have to get it out of the frozen section, but fresh is better.

4th best imo shrimp or squid. This can be more expensive if you can't find a good deal. I do not know why, but we always had better luck with squid in the summer and shrimp in the winter.

5th earth worms. They work well, but have a tendency to catch a lot of really small fish.

6th dough baits. Can work well, but come off the hook easily and have a tendency to catch smaller fish. I have had far and away the best luck with the Fish bites EZ shrimp that is often used for surf fishing. It DOES NOT come off the hook even after catching 3-4 fish, but the scent like gel does disappear after a couple hours. I use this when on overnight trips where it is hard to keep or catch bait. Yeh-Monn is actually the freshwater catfish version of the bait, but i've never tried it.

Bonus bait: Another one of my favorite baits is crawfish tails. All of the dead ones that come in each year for the crawfish boil get frozen in the freezer for catfish bait. Not sure where you could find that this time of year

These guys all came off beef liver on 2 fishing rods river fishing about 2 months ago.

BurrOak said:

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ghollow said:

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The best bait for trotlines is live shad. The second best bait is cut shad.

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Live perch.

They can actually stay alive.

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I will put cut shad up against live perch any day

ghollow said:

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BurrOak said:

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ghollow said:

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The best bait for trotlines is live shad. The second best bait is cut shad.

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Live perch.

They can actually stay alive.

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I will put cut shad up against live perch any day

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For blues and channels, perhaps. For yellows, hell nah.

For the sake of this discussion I'm assuming perch=whatever variety of sunfish, bluegill, etc. you catch out of the lake? I grew up calling them all perch but I have been corrected by the "wellactually" folks before.

Yes. None of them are actual perch. But Texans for the most part collectively call them all perch.

Put beef liver on just now. There was one 11 incher on the line that I released.

How about a pic of the water your fishing?

https://app.photobucket.com/u/shifty_auction/p/64e37b3e-cb3c-492c-ad89-82d39af96114

Struck out today with the beef liver. I just rebaited now, beef liver soaked in catfish blood dip. And this time I made sure there is a weight in the middle of the line, not just on each ends. And I made my sons pray for catfish.

I kayaked up the river today and for kicks brought along a rod with a minnow topwater. The thunderclouds started rolling in after about 1.5 miles upstream, so I started drifting back downstream, casting. Actually did catch a small bass, came off right by the kayak (good for me), first fish ever on a large topwater lure. Unfortunately the dark clouds and thunder chased me back without fishing anymore.

Back at home base, I got the 7 weight out with the sinking line and attached a hopper. Just having fun casting. Listening to the line. I decide to close up shop, and 25 feet from me a fish hits the surface hard. Of course that meant another 15 minutes of casting practice with no results to show for it.

Beautiful night.

Sounds like you're having fun. I enjoy your outdoor write-ups.

Yesterday morning I woke up to an unexpected find on the trotline. A gar. The first time I have ever caught a gar. Impressive fish. Released it with some effort.

Later in the day I caught a red-eared turtle. I could not get the hook out of it slower jaw despite all my efforts. So I cut the line.

the liver has done a pretty good job of staying on the line, but the results are not so great.

Because I've never run out of liver, today I'm trying to beef heart for the first time. The River Rose about a foot by yesterday evening, after rains the night before. This morning the river is down by about a foot. But visability which is not great to begin with, is now worse. I've been thinking about moving my trotline to a different part of the river, but it seems like too much of a pain. After my initial success with a trotline I was expecting to be rolling in catfish, but that certainly has not happened.

I had a long attempted fishing expedition on the river yesterday in my Hobie outback. I've done very little fishing from a kayak. My first duh moment was when I realized that my fly rod doesn't fit into the fly holder, because of how low the real is on the rod. I slept the water several times with no result. I also used the spincaster, also with no result. But it was fun being on the river. Note to self, use sunscreen.

The other kayak I brought on the trip that I have used is the perception 12-footer. It doesn't have an external rudder but it tracks really well. It is also much an hour than the Hobie outback. Also much lighter. I find that the outback is almost unmanageable without the rudder down. That can be a problem in very shallow water where the rudder is hitting rocks. It's also a pain to use the mirage fins in very shallow water. For just going up River I think the perception is actually more enjoyable. However when floating down river it is nice to have easy rudder control with one hand, for steering as you fish.

I'll try and post a screenshot from video of the gar. Later.

There are some people flying up and down the river on jon boats. which is pretty amazing to me given that the water is so shallow and some places that my kayak had trouble. So those propellers don't have a problem going in one foot of water? Of course there are some channels in the river that are a little bit deeper. Just seems a little bit sketchy to me.

Best advice, make sure your line is properly marked and tagged with a gear tag. Do no place it in areas of high traffic, or channels that folks use to travel such as boat lanes. Read the regulations from TPWD regarding construction and placement. There are some places you are not allowed to run lines.

I'm not sure of buoy placement or how that works per regulations.

Anyway, while kayaking yesterday I found a floating dead carp. I netted it and took it back to the house. My brother cut it up and we put it on as bait. This morning, checked the line, and had a large softshell turtle on. No, I didn't keep it.

I'm thinking the recent rain may have hampered the fishing with the trotline. If I ever do this again, I'll probably bring at least one more trotline and put it someplace else in the river to see if results are different based on location. My part of the river is quite shallow.

Beef heart seems to stay on the line better than beef liver. But I don't really have any results to speak of from either. The cut carp has stayed on the line the best. Those scales are tough. Get the hook between scales, and it's not going anywhere.

Even other fish think carp is nasty....

Pics from the strip: bass caught on caddis fly, gar on trotline, the 2 keeper catfish I caught on the trotline the first day. Overall catches on the trotline: 3 catfish (2 keepers), 1 gar, 1 red eared turtle, 1 softshell turtle. I was expecting to be rolling in catfish, it just didn't happen. After almost 24 hours on the line, that carp smelled so nasty on those hooks. Beef heart stayed on the hooks better than beef liver. But the best success was with that stinkbait dough on the first day.

Tie up some new lines and try more spots. Cant tell you how many times ive set out 5-6 lines and all the fish come from one.

If you want, post a Google earth link to the area you are fishing and we'll see if any good spots stick out.

How about a pic of the hooks you're using?

Small circle hooks are the go to for channels and smaller blues like you are fishing for.

Khale hooks if you add in live bait for flatheads.