What I like to do before I go catfish fishing is make up some treble hooks on about 18" of 20lb test leader. On one end I tie the treble hook and other other a small loop.
That way I can use a piece of wire with a notch it in, shove it through half a hot dog and pull the leader back through. That way the treble hook is in the end of the hot dog and none of the barbs are exposed. Then I just connect the loop on the other end of the leader to a swivel, and on the other end of the swivel I have an ounce or two egg weight. So setup like a Carolina rig, basically. With the treble hooks in the far end of the hot dog, you can cast it as hard as you want and its not going anywhere. And the fish has to really get into that piece of dog before the notice the hook, so they'll usually already be running with it and you get a nice hookset.