I usually fish blue cats but being that I  am fishing a new area where there is plenty of channel cats, I really reading and learning all I can on channel cats. OK what is strawberry smelt? or smelt period??????I have never heard of smelt. Aly help is appreciated

Catfishbully

Rob y'all have herring or shad around there? If you do fix them the same way there is a couple of recipes in the Bait section and let us know how they work  :mrgreen:

Strawberry Smelt has been a favorite bait for channel cats know matter were i use them even the pike like them because of there color red. i generally will get a 3 lb bag of smelt from the store then when mixing use one package of kool-aid to a 1/4 cup water not hot water cold water and put all in a zip-lock and let sit over nite before you use them they work awesome in my area. :cheers:  :cheers:  :cheers:

great tim...there went my channel cat secret..lol
 yes i only found success with a certain brand also. it was sold at sav a lots
the kind that worked best for me was the lime and the cherry

cherry had the best results right before the heat of the summer and mid spring  just about the same with the lime but it seemed that the lime was good all the way up in the mid fall....... cherry would get a lot more bites  a lot faster usually within 5 -10 minutes....... all night ..... and the lime would usually get bites a lot less but the bigger fish hit it... 6# and up on the lime.... only caught 1 that was under 6 # on the lime....
These test I kept track of the results for the last 2 years and we have fished them about 4 different places and all the results were the same...........

id take one package of flavor-aid and pour out a good bit of the liver blood and put in.... and then put the lid back on and mix it up.....shake it...be careful if you use a stick to stir it up dont want to tear the liver. the fresher the better for me....... give it a try.... only one time i caught a flathead on it and it was a tiny one so.... thats pretty much it .... i also noticed that it out preformed cut shad and fresh live shad in creeks for some reason... that test was last year ill give it another go this year for channels also.... good luck...