This week we will be concentrating on catfish baits. There has always been an abundance of choices when going after cats of all breeds. Of course, the bait of choice with most cat fishermen is good old stinky chicken liver. Then again, if you’ve fished with it you realize that this bait has a few drawbacks.

One is the smell. Chicken liver stinks to high heaven and tends to draw gnats to you when you get it on your hands. Not those harmless old fly around gnats either, but the ones that seem determined that there is something tasty in your ears and eyes.
The second drawback, and most annoying, is the fact that it will fly off your hook at the drop of a hat. This can be remedied by taking a pair of pantyhose (bear with me on this one men) and cutting it into pieces. Then you would wrap the liver in it and slip it onto your hook. This prevents it from flying off and makes it harder for the fish to steal it. Unfortunately, there is no method of buying pantyhose that makes it less embarrassing, unless of course your wife will do it for you.

There are a number of stink baits on the market. Some are pretty good I must admit, but being the old fashioned angler that I am, I prefer my own concoction. Cast net or snag yourself about six good-sized shad and let them set out in the heat for two days. Be sure and cover them or you will end up with a nasty mess of maggots. Then take them out and crush them up into a mulch paste. This will be fairly simple as the heat turns them really soft. There will be some residual liquid left in your bucket of shad, a red bloody smelly liquid. Pour this into the mix too. Then purchase two cups of chicken livers and smash them up with the shad, mixing well. Make sure that you pour the excess chicken blood in with the liver. Next mix two heaping teaspoons of garlic salt into the mess. Ground this all up as much as possible. We want to get a lot of liquid out of this mixture so really pulp it good. When this is achieved strain the liquid from the paste. From there you take three tins of biscuit doe and one cup of oatmeal. Mix these two together well. Then take your liquid and mix it with the doughy substance as well as possible. There will still be some liquid left over of course. Let this liquid set in the dough overnight where bugs can’t get into it. This insures that it really soaks up the flavor. The next morning pour the excess liquid back into your shad/liver mix and form the dough into big thick balls. Let this set in the fridge for a couple of days uncovered (apologizing profusely to your wife the whole time) and it will harden just a bit. Then you take it fishing. The excess ingredients you have left over in the bucket make a nice chum to get the fish interested in your bait, so I suggest you take it along too. The smell is bad, but the results are very good.

But far be it for me to say mine is the best (It is!) or the only one out there. This one is called Catfish Super bait. It was donated by one of our readers:

Catfish Super Bait
1 1/2 cups water
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons powdered garlic
1 1/12 cups plain corn meal
4 ozs. Chicken livers
Mix water, sugar, cheese and garlic. Bring to boil. Remove from heat. Add cornmeal and stir until firm. Add chicken liver. Stir well.
Instead of chicken livers, we sometimes use one of the following:
4 oz. Sardines
4 oz. Oil Packed Tuna
4 oz. Cheap Canned Luncheon Meat
Livers seem to work the best when fishing in current, sardines or tuna on trotlines and luncheon meat in lakes and ponds.
Although this stays on the hook pretty well, we prefer to tie it in an old piece of panty hose. This will stay on in any current (we fish a lot below dams). Also small fish and crawfish can’t get it off the hook.
Try these two out and if you want more just drop me a line. I have access to tons of really good home made catfish bait recipes, all really good. I’d be happy to share them with our readers.
Tricks of the Trade: We have discussed Garlic salt before, but a little tip on it. Use it on any bait that you catfish with. They love the smell and tend to be able to track it better than blood and regular fish scent.