I enjoy watching videos by Sam Woods. He uses catfood in his DPs and squirts what he calls "fish grease" around his coon sets. He also stuffs a product I'm guessing is some kind of canned mackerel down his dirthole sets. Again, he squirts his "fish grease" around his sets.

I'm assuming fish grease might be the leftover oil from frying fish? Is it? Then, he always smears Lenon's Coon All Call on top of the DP or the top of the hole. I can catch as many little bluegill as I want. Would these be a substitute for all 3 of the ingredients he uses?

I'd love to try the DPs but had to choose what traps would be more versatile for the money. The few coilsprings and about a dozen longsprings just seemed to give me and the grandkids a few more options. Plus, I don't think I would be stuffing bluegill pieces into my DPs if I had any.

Some fish smell fishier than other fish. Mackerel from a can is stronger smelling than fresh bluegill for sure.
I use what I can get, carp, bluegill, whatever.
Jim

Fry them gills and use the oil for coon bait !

lol I tried canning some bluegills in a attempt to diy sardines! Lets just say ill stick to buying sardines those gill had twice the fish smell of any sardines once canned. So now I use it as cage bait and it works surpisingly well! The great thing about canning them they will last indefinitely. . And i cant see a reason why essential oils couldn't be added to spruce them up more. Before or after the canning process

A couple years ago me and one of the other dads in our neighhood took a bunch of the neighbor kids fishing. A big cooler with ice in the back of the truck, some nightcrawlers and we had a blast helping kids catch whatever they could being in. Was mostly bluegill but some small carp and some cats.
I took the haul back and chopped everything in half or thirds and salted all of it down in 3 quart ice cream pails. We had some awesome coon bait that year. Later in season we put fish in trash pile sets along edges of bean fields and caught several coyotes with it too.
Jim

Just can’t believe you guys ain’t eating those gills, lol !

Hey Golf Ball

I love bluegill. The ones I'd use for bait are very small and come from a pond that is terribly overstocked with them. The owner of the pond pleads with us to bring the grandkids over to fish. He asks us to not return any back into the pond.

Oh I get it, just funnin somewhat , we cleaned a big mess one winter. Same story , owner wanted them thinned , filets turned out about the size of your thumb. Took longer to clean and fry than it did to eat but MAN were they good ! No doubt they would make great bait ! ! !

I use itty-bitty bluegill sunfish if I only have them. The best baits in my opinion are bullhead, creek chubs, carp species, trout remains. The oily the better. Catfish works well also.