Kaleb, Welcome to the BOC.Id say you should catch some flats if use use live bluegills or shad. Can also use cut shad and skipjack too. Just try these and see what works best for you. rspd507
Kaleb, welcome to the BOC/SOC :cool2:, best catfishing site on the web! Be sureto check out the library, a lot of good inf in there. I agree with the previous posts. Our go to bait is Skip Jack fresh or frozen and then fresh caught shad. You may have mooneye in your area if so that will be your best bait. Fish whatever is natural to the waters you fish.
Your region of the country may be different, but in my recent trip to the James River in Virginia, we used fresh cut shad that worked very well for us. The frozen shad didn't seem to be as effective. Remember though, big bait will catch big fish, because with blue cats the smaller ones don't seem to mess with larger bait. My role of thumb was to use a piece about the size of my fist, but no smaller. If you're fishing for numbers, you could downsize your bait, because I'm sure the big ones still wouldn't pass it up.
