VASSAR, Kan. (MCT) — Minutes after Dave Schmidtlein hit the water at Pomona Lake, he prepared for “the big stink.”
First, he spread sheets over the entire front deck of his boat. Then he cracked the lids on four separate containers of catfish stink bait he had made — goo that gave off the collective smell of a garbage dump.
Finally, he opened the lid on some fermented soybeans, chum that he calls the appetizer.
“We use pliers to punch the hooks down in this stuff,” Schmidtlein said as he coated a small treble hook with a peanut-butter looking substance. “You don’t want to get it on you. And I don’t want to get it on the carpet of the boat. That’s why I use these sheets.
“This stuff stays with you. It’s hard to get off.”
Schmidtlein paused and smiled.
“But it’s some of the best catfish bait I’ve seen, especially at this time of the year,” he said. “Once that smell disperses underwater, it will bring them in.”
Like most dedicated catfishermen, Schmidtlein guards the ingredients of his several versions of stink bait four like a chef does with one of his prized dishes. He will tell you that his baits are primarily cheese-based. “There’s a factory that we buy old cheese from,” he said.
Add some shad, chicken liver, congealed beef blood, fiber binder and some secret ingredients, and you have a concoction that would appeal to any catfish’s nose.
“We’ve tried this bait alongside some of the commercial baits on the market, and this stuff has outperformed some of the better-known brands,” said Schmidtlein, who lives in Topeka.
Schmidtlein proved its effectiveness on an outing Tuesday afternoon. With the temperature soaring past the 100-degree mark, Schmidtlein practically had Pomona Lake to himself.
But he sat in his boat far off shore, and caught channel cats regularly.
He started by tossing a couple of handfuls of tossed a couple of handfuls of the appetizer, the soybeans, into the water, then dropped his bait right where the beans were drifting down. Within minutes, he watched the tip of his light-action rod bounce slightly. He quickly set the hook, and the rod bent sharply.
The catfish dug for the bottom,, then stripped out line. But in a matter of seconds Schmidtlein had the three-pound channel in the boat and was admiring his catch.
That was fish No. 1 of 81. Schmidtlein and I regularly caught channel cats throughout the six hours we were on the water, even as the sun blazed down Many of them were small — “pre-kindergartners” as Schmidtlein called them. But we caught a fair number of 2- to 3-pound fish and a few in the 6- to 7-pound range. All of them were tossed back this day.
For Schmidtlein, it was just another day in the summer life. He is out several times a week, fishing reservoirs such as Coffey County, Pomona, Melvern and Clinton, searching for channel catfish.
It wasn’t always that way. For years, Schmidtlein and his fishing partners have concentrated primarily on crappies. But in the 1990s, they searched for something to fill in the lull during the summer when the crappie fishing got tough. So they turned to channel catfish.
Schmidtlein soon developed his own methods for catching large numbers of cats. He found that his locator was a big help in locating the channel cats, just as it is with other species of fish. He found the largest concentrations of catfish on “vertical structure,” as he calls it. Humps, points, channel dropoffs, ditches, hedge rows — they all held fish.
Then he started experimenting with punch baits that would attract them. He went to small treble hooks that could be punched into the gooey bait (thus the term punch bait) he makes and fished that bait vertically, one or two cranks of the reel above the bottom.
Because the hits were so subtle, he went to light action rods or flyrods so that he could detect the hits. He began to concentrate on the summer months, starting in late June and fishing straight through as long as the water temperature is in the 70s.
Those methods have produced literally thousands of channel catfish for Schmidtlein and his fishing partners. It isn’t unusual for him and a partner to catch and release 100 catfish or more in a day of fishing.
He has a counter mounted on his boat near his feet so that he can keep track of his catch and enter it into a journal.
The weather has been hot and unbearable at times this summer, keeping most boats off the lake. But Schmidtlein has stayed with it and has enjoyed excellent fishing.
“I don’t care how hot it gets, these catfish will bite,” he said. “As long as you stay hydrated and there’s a little breeze, it’s not so bad.
“And when you’re catching fish, that helps.”
