I caught a few cats on gummy worms at a local lake down in FL when I was a kid. And a few on green beans on a hand line down thru a runoff grate in the road while waiting at my bus stop in elementary school.

Captn. Great post,brings back a lot of good memories. My crew also used Velveeta cheese,spleen,Anise oil soaked corn & most others listed. I got Trout on cigarette filters Got many gills on a bare swivel on a hook after we ran out of bait also tried with some success, strips of Seal Skin on ice jigs, we also used house flys that we killed on the porch & then used the eyeballs of the gills we caught to catch Perch,which for some reason really liked them. The only time that I can remember falling for those T.V. wonders was over 50 yrs ago when we spent all of the money that my buddy got for his birthday for a guaranteed,super dooper can't miss 2 piece bucktail jig.Unfortunatly not only did we not get a fish & lost it the first time that he used it, we also got a whup'n when we were found out. Oh well at least I learned a lesson from that.  thanks again  sam

I was golfing in Morgantown, maybe ten years ago.  I was walking across a breastwork with a sand wedge and i was poking around the weeds at the edge of the water with it looking for a ball.  I had a very large channel catfish come up and latch onto the head of the club, only briefly, maybe for five seconds.  I guess it must have thought it was a gill or something floundering around on it's side.  Pretty cool experience.

When i was very young. We lived down in Prosperity Pa. There was a small pond on the landlords property that my brother and I would fish in. Had an old bamboo pole and a Christmas tree hook. caught a few bluegill with that ornament hook!