Here is a picture of the chain snake we use to pick a line off of the bottom. As you can imagine, it can have lots of good uses. This thing works in all depths water. It will pick up a line every time, digs in a little to get into the sand or mud, and will release automaticly if caught on a piece of the bottom or other debris. That is where it is better than a grapnel. If you look closely, you can see that the half links are welded to the chain in alternating directions, so it always has hooks digging into the bottom.
The second photo is of the shoreline bottom, showing where small sting rays have been digging for fresh water clams. Taken this week.
I learned something great this week about seacatfish bait. From past tests, I knew that squid were the best bait so far. They have a few drawbacks. First, they are expensive at $7.95 for 5 lbs from Walmart. Second, they are not real tuff. I was getting 60 hooks out of 200 back empty. So I tried giant squid wings, available at the fish house. Man, what a bait!! They have the squid smell, aparently irresistable to catfish. They are cheap at .50-.60 cent a pound, easy to cut and hook, and very tuff. I got virtually no empty hooks back. I tried grouper guts on the last 35 hooks, with very poor results. Only 2 or 3 fish.
Based on these results, it may be worthwhile to buy some Illex squid to use in fresh water for blues, channels and flatheads. It would be nice if someone who has tried them would post here with the results.