best DIY catfish bait?

[fuadramsey]

Any tips on buying or making your catfish bait?

I've used chicken liver and it seems to work pretty good, but if falls of the hooks easy. I saw mention of putting it in panyhose to hold it. Does the color of the panty hose matter?

What about buying your own shrimp as opposed to getting it at the bait shop?

Lastly what about scents? Should I buy some scent (any recomendations) or can I mix up some garlic powder with the bait?

Thanks!

[kendo]

Ill use mackerel or bonita. I usually get it from the asian markets either fresh or frozen. I will fillet them, then cut them into about 1" thick strips, and then put a nice heavy coating of salt and then leave them in the sun for a few hours on a cardboard box. This will make them a little more tough and stay on the hook better. You can also add garlic salt or garlic powder to the salt coating to give it that extra flavor. I will pack them in a resealable container (yogurt, sour cream) and freeze them and pull them when i need them. I usually hook them on the hook in a $ fashion. With chicken livers I found it easy before my trip to wrap them with a bit of sewing thread. Just take a chicken liver and wrap it in all directions around the chicken liver to keep them in place. This also works for muscles. Good luck!

[Karyn]

:Thumbs Up:
Ill use mackerel or bonita. I usually get it from the asian markets either fresh or frozen. I will fillet them, then cut them into about 1" thick strips, and then put a nice heavy coating of salt and then leave them in the sun for a few hours on a cardboard box. This will make them a little more tough and stay on the hook better. You can also add garlic salt or garlic powder to the salt coating to give it that extra flavor. I will pack them in a resealable container (yogurt, sour cream) and freeze them and pull them when i need them. I usually hook them on the hook in a $ fashion. With chicken livers I found it easy before my trip to wrap them with a bit of sewing thread. Just take a chicken liver and wrap it in all directions around the chicken liver to keep them in place. This also works for muscles. Good luck!

Great advise/post. I learned something new today

[smokehound]

IMO, the best catfish bait you can get is a small live crayfish, though that takes a bit of work to obtain.

There are two ways to obtain a crayfish, one is by using a soda-bottle trap, which works fine, but takes a while..

the other is by carefully picking up flat stones and snatching crayfish hiding beneath them. The 'dads will sit there for a second before darting away, and arent hard to grab, at all... ..Well, unless you're afraid of a little pinch, that is. The perfect size is a two-incher.

I just hook them through the nose and flyline them. The best thing about this bait, is it will attract bass and large panfish, as well as catfish.


Another fantastic bait, (far more effective than mackerel, BTW..) is live, or fresh-dead cut threadfin shad, which can be caught with small white or silvery flies, or a size-14 sabiki rig. (remember to cut off all but three hooks)

One thing to keep in mind is They are fed special foods full of soy, corn, and fish meal. Adding these ingredients should greatly enhance your results.

[boxl0bster]

all good info above, but fresh mack with any kind of garlic scent works best for me, simple is best. as for the asian markets just make sure you dont buy norwegian saba, it may look the same but its not.

[Fysher]

If you can, catch yourself some fresh macks.

Try using a treble hook instead of single when using chicken liver.

Scent, I always fish with "Hogwild" that stuff stinks but the whiskers love it.

The Asian market shells shrimp pretty darn cheap, make sure you buy the unfrozen ones with the shells (behind the counter glass), in my opinion they work better than the peeled frozen ones.

For making your own bait, you can pretty much try anything. Catfish are bottom feeders and they smell using their barbels/whiskers and will eat anything that has a scent to it. I've caught whiskers on macks, bonita, sardines, anchovies, chicken liver, hot dogs, spam, tortilla, dough bait, nightcrawlers and so on, you get the picture.

Try this homemade doughbait for the whiskers. Blend some spam up and mix it in with flour and some water. Make sure to not add too much water. You want the doughbait to be kind of tough so it will stay on the hook. Use a treble hook with this doughbait. You can also try adding some garlic powder if you like. Try it and experiment, that's the fun part of making your own catfish bait. Good luck out there

[LGHT]

Wow a lot of great tips. I was out rock fishing last week and tossed back a several macks. I mean you had to reel as fast as you could on the way up and use a 1 oz sinker on the way down because around 10-30 feet you could see hundreds of them just waiting for a free meal!!

I think i'm gonna hang on to a few and just fillet and freeze them for catfishing at the local lakes.

[fish-o-haulic]

My best catfish bait is simple nightcrawler blown up to keep it off the bottom. I cut mine in half sometimes and it is deadly for cats and trout.
I hear soap works like bars of soap. I used to take chicken liver mash it up poor in a little salt and rotten meat and occasionally nigtcrawlers, mix it all up in a bag let it sit in the sun for a day or two. Then take the vaccuum packed shad from walmart cut em open put that stuff in then carfully sew it back. then i would put a slit in the shad right before using it to allow some of the bait to leak out and fill the water with the smell. I would kill cats on that stuff. surprisingly i didnt have a constant every minute bite but i would catch a limit pretty quickly but would use the stuff sparingly so the cats wouldnt get used to the scent and not take it as often as i wanted. But i havent done this method in over 3years but it worked no doubt.