A friend of mine has been doing an experiment with a couple different catfish baits recently. He has been targeting channel cats and baiting the trotline with fresh cut shad. The first night he caught 3 channels weighing 2-4 pounds. The next night he baited with frozen grasshoppers from last year. He caught 8 from 3 - 8 pounds and most of the fish were over 4 pounds. Last night he baited with garlic weiners and caught 3 channels from 2 - 4 pounds. We have been toying with shad vs. garlic weiners since last Thanksgiving on jug lines. Sometimes the weiners catch the most and the next time the shad win. I have heard of grasshoppers being used for cats for many years so we decided to test them out. Remember the current hopper population is not big enough to be used as bait yet. The trotline never moved during the several night experiment. What really started this was a report of yellow hoppers catching 60 channels in 24 hours for 4 guys last week. So it appears that grasshoppers are REALLY relished by channels. The weiners seem to hold there own against fresh shad which was a surprise. Another friend who fishes Kerr swears by garlic weiners on juglines and so I accepted the challenge to compare. I now feel fairly confident that if I cannot get shad then cheap weiners microwaved with garlic powder or salt will do fine. But I know what I am going to be doing several summer nights and that is raiding the fields with johnson grass plucking yellow hoppers and freezing them. I am expecting that the hoppers are going to beat the pants off of shad and weiners on jugs.