I heard about a lake in my locality where there was rumoured to be a giant catfish. I had been warned about going to fish there; "Beware; fishing rods have been snapped with ease by the monster that lurks there!" Well, I never expected to hook such a fish, and although I had hooked and caught some large catfish of about 30 pounds, it did not bother me in the slightest that I might hook a 'monster.' The chances were so slim.

I had fished at night at the lake and landed twelve sturgeon up to about 12 pounds. They were not the 30 pound carp I was aiming for, but great sport all the same, as they tail walked on the water during fights. This was a new trick for me. I got to thinking I needed a special bait to hook the carp. Perhaps one they had never seen before.

I had begun fishing at the lake using my old favourite earthworms, and had already sampled the delights of the lakes tiny perch and slimy eels. A bonus 15 pound carp was more like the size I desired, but still small when compared to my personal goals here. Apparently the carp in the lake went over 40 pounds, and so my thoughts were fixed on these!

I decided to 'go back to basics' and make a homemade paste, 'dough bait'. I was into making dough baits, as I had found them so far superior to using ordinary boilies when used and applied correctly. I heard a rumour that trout pellets were being fed into the lake in very large amounts, and so this might affect results on boilies too.

I refused to use trout pellets themselves as bait, because I did not want to be lazy, and wanted to keep learning more about bait and their effects, by doing thing differently to other anglers. Anyway, I did not wish to copy everyone else, and use the same bait as them; I would simply end up merely catching 'average' catches. And I wanted to specifically target big catches and the biggest fish!

So I went off to the supermarket and purchased five pounds of prepared pork sausage meat. I added to this 3 small pots of garlic granules, 2 dozen hen eggs, 5 pounds of cheap semolina powder and 5 tins of sweetcorn to be liquidized.

I obtained a bottle of body building liquid amino acids in cherry flavour, and a small bottle of alcohol based vitamin and mineral supplement, and some sea salt. All from the health food shop. Finally, I found 10 boxes of oats and I was ready to make some new bait.

After an evening of experimenting with these ingredients and making a sticky mess in buckets, I finally made up a good few pounds of paste dough for free offerings or 'ground bait'. The trickiest bit was finding the best ratios of ingredients to make effective hook baits.

I wanted to make them tougher and scald them in boiling water to give them a protective 'skin' without losing all their attraction. I had filled these hook baits, just like the ground bait, with lots of cherry flavours amino acids compound, liquidized sweet corn, sea salt, garlic granules and vitamin and mineral supplement.

To cut a long story short, the first I night fished, produced a surprising three 30 pound catfish in a row. Wow! The next week, the night produced four 30 pound catfish. Great! The following night produced three 30 pound catfish a 20 pound catfish and two fish lost. Fantastic sport, but where were the carp that I was actually fishing for?

I had to assume that the catfish were actually forcing the carp away from the bait in the swim. But I was pleased to be getting such good sport.

I decided to give the bait one more night and returned with my girlfriend for company. Again at about 2 am my bite alarm shattered the peace and quiet, and I strained to slow down another hard pulling catfish. I had gotten extremely used to this pattern of strike, play, land and weigh at night. This fish looked just like previous ones and weighed 35 pounds. I was looking forward to catching maybe four more like it that night. But strangely, it was not to be.

I was camping out under a fishing umbrella with sides attached to keep the wind off. My girlfriend slept like a log at the back of the tent on the comfortable bed chair. I was heroically perched precariously at the front, facing the cold night on the rocky old sun-lounger, and in the old sleeping bag with the broken zip. This set-up might bring back memories for a few of you!

Just as I had given up hope of another fish at 7 am, an alarm screamed into life and I struggled to reach the bouncing rod. Unfortunately, I never got there; the curse of the sleeping bag with the broken zip combined with a bed chair that kindly flipped me over backwards and trapped me, put paid to that!

I angrily and resignedly recast the rod, without much hope of another fish as daylight began to break, and packing up time beckoned. I heard an alarm suddenly beep almost immediately, but fish hitting the line were very common at this time and I took no notice. 5 minutes later and it happened again and I made a mental note. 2 minutes later I felt all was not normal. So I gave the rod a really big strike, like you do, not expecting anything to happen.

Only this time, nothing really did happen. The rod hooped right over and did not move. "Damn, I must have hooked a snag on the lake bed, just as I was about to pack up too." I thought. Just then I felt 'the bottom' move, very slowly, by inches it seemed at a time. It was about then my heart hit my mouth, as I tried to contain the shock of the situation.

I automatically walked backwards, and started to heave the monster off the bottom. It came up an inch at a time, the rod was well past its test curve, and creaking at the butt end. The line sang strained high notes of the kind I had never heard before!

The unseen leviathan took back control and took off slowly towards the centre of the lake, with me straining every muscle to slow it down, as the tightly set clutch whined way too fast for my liking. There was a massive boil at the surface as the great fish changed direction. It charged at the opposite bank. The fisherman opposite fell off his chair as the giant struck the bank right in front of him. I was too focussed to laugh at the time!

Taking deep gulps of breathe, I determined not to give the stunned fish an inch of line, now I had experienced the power it possessed. Cranking it back slowly a foot at a time, it took an eternity to heave back in front of me, just beyond some weed beds.

As it came along in front of me my girlfriend held out my meagre 42 inch carp landing net. As we watched the fish pass between two weed beds in front of us, we counted off the length in feet. After counting about six and a half feet, it became like a scene out of "Jaws" as we both said in very dead pan voices: "We're going to need a bigger net!"

When help arrived, we hauled the giant catfish up onto the bank, onto waiting mats and an especially long weigh sling. As the weigh scales pointer hovered around the magical 100 pound mark I was in a daze. I was trying to remember what I put into the bait that created this experience so I could make it happen again!

I landed over thirty 30 pound catfish in the following six weeks, but I never again hooked the monster on the same bait. I guess he just learnt his lesson!

The author has many more fishing and bait 'edges' up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article is protected by copyright.)

By Tim Richardson.

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