The No Snagg Sinker from Lindy is perfect in heavy cover. Use live stuff, such as like bluegills, when targeting big flatheads. For channels, try nightcrawlers or dead minnows in spring. Cut baits, like bluegills, work nearly anytime, anywhere. Try liver and fresh shrimp, not the iodine-treated frozen kind.
Prepared baits work like cheese bait work, too, especially later in the summer.
Some anglers use no sinker at all and let the bait provides the only weight for casting and to sink itself to the bottom. The only exception to the rule comes when they slide on a small Lindy sinker to fish spots with current. Catfishing gets hot right after ice out. Action continues right into the spawning period, which occurs in June or July when the length of days is right and water temperatures reach into the 70s. Like walleyes, catfish move upstream in rivers until they meet an obstruction, such as a rapids.