Using land animals as barbel bait

deisel

Sealiner
i have used rats from the pet store that my snakes wont eat, i have used small birds with great succsess, also used ox heart and liver or chiken livers, toads and frogs, crabs aswell , not sure what to catagorize a crab as, crickets earthworms and grubs also fall into the land animals section, termites are also a good bait
 

J

Senior Member
I live in a complex and have contemplated using some of the small 4 legged animals who bark non stop all night long.

"if it bounces when it barks, its not a dog" Jeff Dunham.


(note I am kidding and will never use a dog as bait..... its just nice to think about it when they are barking late at night)
 

Enigma

Moderator
I've caught many barbel on all types of road kill collected alonf the way to the dam.

Birds remain the top baits though. Have even caught one on a whole pigeon I picked up alongside the road between Klerksdorp and Wolmaranstad

I have also used lizards with good effect while fishing the twin dams in Venda. the barbell were schooling and smashing anything that moved and we only had carp bait and the only meat baits I could catch were skinks and they caught quite a few barbel for me.
 

Pipeman

Senior Member
I think barbel will basically eat anything it sees as food and can swallow it! There was a nice episode of River Monsters on Discovery last night, where Wels Catfish even attacked humans haha! The Wels Catfish in the river Ebro Spain are known to have taken little dogs, swans well basically anything that come across their path that could fit int their mouth! They reckon they grow at 10lb a year and can live up to 80 years so you can do the math of the size of these fish. They also said they can basically swallow something a third of their own length, quite scary!
 

Basspro

Senior Member
What they found was an estimate of a 40lb cat almost fully digested in the gut of a massive cat -
So yeah - it's like the old adage: "Dog eats Dog"
 
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