INDIANANGLER

This is just a guess but I would suggest chicken livers, gizzards etc.

Murrel tend to go for frogs, insects and other fish. Not really sure how you would do with bait. My guess is that chances are not too good.

Murrel will take most meat baits.... live frogs are the best.

I had a murral take a hair rig on a 'regulation'no. 8 hook,baited with ragi, as Gypsy will attest. Left me so shell shocked, i still managed a jerky hookset and got him to within 2 m, before he spat it out.
So try ragi? as for hooks, anything-literally-from the spinner sized No.4, all the way upto scum frog sized 4/0 and 5/0.
However, if you are using meat/chicken guts, sausages , watch out for toitles taking your hook.Damned irritating!

what about lizards??
i mean the artificial ones like -
http://cgi.ebay.com/1-PKG-ZOOM-8-MAGNUM ... 0486845002

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VI ... 0486845002

I have a pack of these but havent used it at all.
/S/

frogs works the best ..

quite true alan... most of the locals here use roaches and i know a place were one can get them by the hundreds.. but as you said.. spinners and scum frogs work fine for me.. had the pleasure of seeing two murrel go for my surface frog just before the rains had set in.. enjoyed watching the murrel watching the still lure before it struck.... will be making some trips this week end. heard about some action around town.. keeping my fingers crossed.

I caught a murrel on chicken guts today.......I was hoping for the mulley n got a sneak head (sawal) in mahi river about 3 KGS. It wasn't released. Try that

I generally don't target Murrel. Last year got one of good size while fishing for carps on wasp larvae. Bait was taken at afternoon.

This topic reminds me of my childhood days. Then in the rainy season in low paddy field there were full of variety of fish, koi ( climbing perch), magur (catfish), shol ( snakehead), loitya or lyata (murrel), singi (catfish) and many small fish like morala, puti etc. As no pesticide was used in that days the number of fish were plenty. Water depth remained 1.5' to 2 ft. We used to catch them with our native method of ' nachano barsi' or dancing rod. A long bamboo stick with a flexible thin end with 4 to 5 ft of line and a hook. Using mainly live bait like small frog, insects like grasshopper and also fleshy part of snail. In paddy field among the rows the bait is moved up and down on the top water making noise with the dance of the tip of the rod attracting the predator fish. We used to catch many fish with a single bait without knowing of modern lure and gears. But nowadays that is a just a dream to me. Pesticides cleaned of the fish from paddy field. And no little boy is going with the dancing rod with a joy to catch fish.

its a pity our innundated paddyfields don't get to see much of these fishes nowadays..still there r some places where Shol (Channa Striatus) shows up in the fields during rains