Best catfish bait??

[Familyguy]

I’ve been out hitting the ponds pretty hard and I can see some nice cats coming up to the surface when I toss bread for bluegill but I’m having a hard time landing them. Got a few here and there but I should be landing more. I’ve used night crawlers, tried bread, chicken livers, and cut up blue gill, so far the only thing that’s working is cut bluegill. I’m curious as to what others are using that are getting good success.

 

[dan45]

Try some frozen bait shrimp.
Or a dough bait.

 

[Familyguy]

Ok, never done dough baits but I have used tiger shrimp with decent success in San Diego. I’ll have to try the shrimp again

 

[wolfkpr]

Garlic chicken..

 

[retrieverman]

Bill’s Catfish Bait is all I use.
Bill’s Catfish Bait

 

[jtmcglothin]

I used just about everything I could find for catfishing, but I’ve always had the best luck with bar s hotdogs. Something about the smell of them I would assume, but with as cheap as they are that’s what I go with every time now.

 

[CutBaitNBlowSh*tUp4ALivin]

My dad used the same bait every month, every summer growing up. We'd go thru a drive thru on the way to Texoma Friday night, he'd order deep fried "livers n gizzards", snack on a few on the drive down, and leave them in the sweltering truck Friday night and all day Saturday. Saturday evening, they got thrown onto hooks. Worked like a charm.

 

[Ready_fire_aim]

All depends what you’re after. For smaller channel cats the worms/hotdogs/chicken products/dough and punch baits/etc all work fine. For blues in lakes, cut baitfish all the way. For flatheads, live baitfish all the way.

My preferred catfish bait is nearly always cut baitfish of whatever species lives in the body of water. Be it shad, bluegill, green sunfish, bullheads, etc.. When going for flatheads I’ll catch a handful of green sunfish and hook ‘em live.

I have also caught plenty of catfish on hotdog chunks and chicken chunks covered with garlic powder and koolaide mix.

I also catch lots of smaller catfish while carp fishing with dough bait on a hair rig.

The main thing is learn how to keep whatever bait properly secured on the hook with plenty of hook gap. I like 5/0 or 6/0 circle hooks for general catfishing

I’ve never cared much for treble hooks and stinkbaits personally

 

[wolfkpr]

We experimented this year- saved deer and feral pig livers- cut in inch chunks- added garlic powder& cool aid powder - throw in a bag in freezer until day you need it. ( much like garlic chicken) unlike chicken livers it stays on the hook. Seems to work as good as garlic chicken. Our biggest this year caught on the liver

 

[TedKennedy]

You really can't go wrong with night crawlers. Catalpa worms are great, and you can freeze them for later use.
Get a shad net and catch fresh shad if possible - a half of a big shad is tough to beat, but fresh is essential.

You can freeze shad, but it really loses it's effectiveness.