All baits should come from the river

Anglers who use live baits typically follow a rule that’s a cliché: the larger the bait, the bigger the fish it will catch.

That’s generally true for flathead catfish, but Michael Paxinos and Clinton Bardner follow another fishing maxim few catfish anglers know.

“We use big live bluegill bream for catfish baits that could be cleaned, fried and eaten,” said Paxinos. “But we don’t catch our live baits from farm ponds. It’s better to catch your baits from the same water where you’re going to fish.”

State regulations prohibit using bream, crappie or other gamefish for bait that have not been caught on rod and reel, so netting is out of the question.

Another tip isn’t obvious but logical; bream caught from the Neuse River smell like the baitfish that catfish are accustomed to eating. Panfish from ponds or other bodies of water have different scents.

Before Paxinos and Bardner start to target catfish, they’ll find a spot in the Neuse River they know is a bream spot and use worms or crickets to catch several dozen large panfish, then place them in a truck-bed livewell that has  aerators to infuse the water with oxygen, plus activated-charcoal filters to neutralize the ammonia created by panfish urine and solid waste.

Paxinos and Bardner also use empty plastic bags to freeze river water; they put those bags in their trucks’ holding tanks and later in their boats’ livewells to keep water cool. The frozen bags help retain oxygen and keep baits lively.

Another reason exists for using baitfish from a catfish stream — pond panfish don’t react the same as native baitfish.

“Pond bream usually aren’t as lively because they don’t have to swim against current in ponds, and they aren’t as afraid of predators,” Paxinos said. “They don’t put out the same signals as a river bream. When they swim past a catfish’s hiding place, they may not act nervous.”

Those differences may be reasons flatheads are reluctant to eat pond bluegills.

“They don’t cause the same reactions in catfish that pass up a farm-pond bream but will eat a river bream in a heartbeat,” Paxinos said.