# Tried it on Yellow River today.



## Geezer (Mar 30, 2014)

It was still about 2 or 3 feet too high & muddy from water draining from the swamps. My wife & I were fishing for bream, but they weren't biting anything & we only caught several small ones. After awhile, I broke out the frozen catalpas & surprisingly, we caught a decent mess of fish.


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## Bodupp (Oct 3, 2007)

That's a fine mess of cats. My Dad used to freeze his catawba worms in corn meal. Is that how you do it?


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## FishWalton (Jul 22, 2010)

That's one fine mess of cats. Fish are biting on the rivers in spite of the high water. Great photo.


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## Geezer (Mar 30, 2014)

Bodupp said:


> That's a fine mess of cats. My Dad used to freeze his catawba worms in corn meal. Is that how you do it?


No, I tried that & it never worked for me. When the worms get about 3 inches long, I put them in a 5 gallon bucket, with plenty of leaves. After about a day to 2 days, they will start to stiffen & crawl to the bottom to begin their morphing process. I then wash, drown & freeze them in water in small containers. Another method of freezing them that seems to work well is to put grown worms in slowly boiling water for a few seconds, until they float to the top. Then freeze them in meal for easy separation. I think Fishwalton posted a video on that a while back. This year, I'm going to freeze some that way as well.


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## FishWalton (Jul 22, 2010)

I'm going to use a few boiled Catawba's tomorrow morning. The water doesn't actually have to boil, just close. Dump them in for about 15 seconds or so and when they float they are ready to put on a paper towel to cool and dry. Then put them in flour or corn meal and freeze. I usually do about a dozen at a time in a small pot.


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## Jason (Oct 2, 2007)

Dandy mess of kitties!!! Ya'll did good!


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## Try'n Hard (Oct 23, 2008)

Great catch. I freeze my catalpas in water and "fruit fresh". I highly recommend it! They always look just picked!


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## GROUPERKING (Sep 28, 2011)

A fine mess ! A little bit of everything. Bluegill, swift waters, goggle eye, channel cats, and a flathead. :thumbup:


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## Bodupp (Oct 3, 2007)

While on the subject of catawba worms ... when I was 15 years old, I helped an old commercial fisherman on the Tennessee River run his lines. He had emphezema real bad, so I would run his lines for him. One day he handed me a sack full of catawbas, and I baited 600 hooks for him. My fingers turned that awful green/brown color from all the worm juice, and stayed that way for over a week, but we caught more fish on that baiting than we ever got on shad. :yes:


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## Try'n Hard (Oct 23, 2008)

I had a chest freezer in the garage that died one year in early July. I found it in late August. It was full of processed deer and fish. When I got all the meat out there was about 6" of blood/juice in the bottom. I'll never forget that smell or how unbelievably fresh those catalpa worms looked floating in there - get ya some fruit fresh!


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## olegator (Dec 6, 2014)

nice mess of good eatin size fish....yum.


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## Geezer (Mar 30, 2014)

Try'n Hard said:


> I had a chest freezer in the garage that died one year in early July. I found it in late August. It was full of processed deer and fish. When I got all the meat out there was about 6" of blood/juice in the bottom. I'll never forget that smell or how unbelievably fresh those catalpa worms looked floating in there - get ya some fruit fresh!


Thanks for the tip. I will try that.


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