First, welcome to the forum and interesting name
Maybe I'm wrong and it takes a bigger bait like catfish.
Try the stream in the back of Oasis Springs park using that kind or an equivalent size fish (bass or even something like treefish). I may have the wrong size fish listed, and if that's the case I'd like to correct that.
I'm gonna go test it right now to see.
Edit: meant stream in the park.
I was able to catch one with a Koi at the pond in Willow Creek Park, but cheated my Skill back to level 6. I'm suspecting it might even be related to the bug that causes Tilapia to be hard to catch. Doing some further testing...