If you want to get a fight started among catfish anglers, simply announce that one particular catfish bait is better than another. As soon as you declare what you consider to be the best bait, everyone in the room will tell you why they have a secret bait that is more efficient than yours. Some of the best baits for catfish may seem outlandish, including that used by my friend Danny Fields of Oak Grove, Alabama, who baited with parts of a dead possum he found on the side of the road. Another friend of mine, Mike Handley, baited with out-of-date hot dogs when he couldn’t find anything else in his lake refrigerator with which to fish. Both anglers were successful.
The best baits to bag buckets full of no-scales depend on: water temperature, time of year, price, smell and availability of the bait, the catfish’s mood and its favorite available food source. Also baits that work well in the winter may not produce in the summer.
Characteristics Of Catfish
The temperature of the water governs how actively catfish feed, because the enzyme action in a catfish’s stomach doubles with each 8-degree increase in water temperature. The hotter the weather becomes, the more catfish feed.
North American catfish species have barbels (whiskers) on their faces that enable the catfish to find food. Catfish taste through their feelers as well as their entire bodies that have more than 100,000 food sensors on them. A catfish discovers food by fanning the bottom with its barbels and honing in on vibrations – catfish can detect high frequencies at 13,000 cycles per second – and following food scents.
Although catfish feed along the bottom, they also will school-up and swim in mid-water and often just under the surface. All catfish species will eat almost any bait at certain times of the year.
Depending on the subspecies, catfish spawn when the water temperature is 60-84 degrees. In areas where both channels and blues live, the channels will spawn first before the blues, which generally spawn in 70-75-degree water. Flatheads require the warmest water for spawning with 80-84 degrees their favored water temperature.
Where To Find Catfish
You can pinpoint catfish with your depth finder and by studying topo maps before you fish by looking for long, sloping points, flats, old roadbeds, drop-offs, holes, canals and submerged bridges. Catfish follow seasonal migration patterns, according to water temperatures. With a water temperature of 55 degrees or below, catfish generally will be found in deep holes. In the early spring, catfish move into more-shallow water, which warms-up first. Lakes with rocky banks, riprap, rock slides and exposed layers of underwater shale will have catfish near those sites, since rocks hold heat and warm-up the water around them. Rocky banks facing south and southwest usually warm-up first.
Here are some of the places where catfish like to stay. In:
- Little or no current – Sink chum bags or cans of dog food as well as fish stink baits for channels and blues in dead lakes, beaver ponds and shallow lakes.
- Standing cypress trees in shallow water – Night crawlers will produce channel catfish there.
- Tailraces with running turbines – When mayflies swarm in the spring and cover the water around tailraces, fishing with mayflies will catch blues. Also cut shad, dead shad minnows, live minnows and shad guts will produce primarily blues and channels in tailraces
- Riprap and rocky structure – Flatheads sometimes prefer live bait like small bream where legal, large minnows and/or large, live shad that frequent these places.
Types Of Catfish And Their Preferred Foods
Blue catfish are highly sought after by anglers because these giant fish are ferocious fighters when hooked. Finding the bait the blues are feeding on means that blue catfish probably are in the area, as these fish are never too far away from food. These fish generally are most active at night or in any low-light conditions. Blue cats will strike at both live bait and artificial. The primary prey or forage fish in the fishery is the best bait to use for this fish. The most-effective setup is usually heavy tackle with cut bait, shad, live herring, or peeler crabs. Many anglers use a bait with plenty of stink, such as cut herring, mud shad, or menhaden.
Channel catfish prefer to eat cut pieces of shad or skipjack herring, nightcrawlers, chicken livers, spoiled shrimp and prepared commercial stink or dip baits. Some anglers swear by soaking cheap hotdogs in Kool-Aid and garlic powder and fishing those for the most channel catfish success. Natural baits that channel catfish prefer include minnows, sunfish where legal, shad, chubs, worms and frogs.
Flathead catfish will eat live bluegills, live suckers, live bullheads, live goldfish, live shad, live skipjack and live carp. For the baits to catch the most fish, catch these baits locally.
Kinds Of Catfish Baits
Stink and Scent Baits
Catfish are scavengers that will feed on almost anything. Since a catfish’s number-one sensory organ is smell, the best baits for catfish are rancid ones and are often the most preferred by the fish. Many anglers today still use traditional cheese dough balls they make from strong-smelling cheese and cheap canned biscuits to call catfish.
Other anglers like to fish with strips of bonito, and chicken and beef livers, gizzards and kidneys. Strong-smelling bars of soap baked in the oven and golden raisins that swell up on hooks and ferment also give off strong odors. Homemade soured-food cooked mixtures made up of pineapple and rice, dry dog food sunk in a burlap bag and marshmallows that have been soaked in a strong-smelling liquid all are effective at calling catfish.
One of the problems associated with using scents is how to keep the scent on the bait long enough to catch a catfish. Here’s some tips borrowed from successful anglers.
- Inject the scent into the bait using a hypodermic needle, a tactic especially good for scenting worms, chicken livers and/or freshly-cut shad.
- Soak a bait in the scent.
- Smear the scent on the bait. Mix your favorite liquid scent with vasoline, and put the mixture on the bait.
- Mold the scent onto the bait using moldables that some lure companies sell.
- Live Baits
To learn the very best bait for catfish where you’re fishing, check the stomachs of the catfish you catch. You may find crawfish, shad or other material in their stomachs, including Louisiana pink worms, catalpa worms, hellgrammites, crickets, roaches, shad, Asiatic clams, tiny frogs, leeches, decaying matter and/or minnows.
Artificial Lures
Some anglers catch catfish on artificial lures. Danny Zaidle of Ennis, Texas, took a world’s-record 94-pound flathead catfish on 17-pound-test line on a crawfish-colored Hellbender. Tommy Campbell of Lakeview, Texas, caught a world-record flathead catfish weighing 72 pounds on 10-pound test line and a crappie jig. During Spring Break, 2024, my 13-year-old grandson, Graham, caught a 20 pound channel on a Rage Craw in Louisiana.
One of the most-effective artificial lures is the Fishbites Freshwater Catfish Bait. These catfish baits, possibly the sole Stink-Free option available currently, do not need refrigeration and maintain their scent and toughness for at least a year if stored correctly. Biodegradable and made from all natural ingredients, Fishbites Freshwater Catfish Bait is available in four scents – shrimp, crawfish, liver and shad.
Catfish Consumption Advisory
Growing up, we caught more catfish than most anything else. Certainly, we caught our fair share of bluegill, and we chased sport fish, such as largemouth bass, like everyone else. But the catfishing involved a little more leisure strategy-wise.
We would limb line, run trotlines, and fish on the bottom with cheese and dog food. My mom‘s father, Papaw, had a variety of ingenious methods that he used to catch big ones.
The other benefit of catfishing is that they are delicious. When you run a trotline in the morning, and come back that night, you know you’re in for a treat. Fresh, wild-caught catfish that are deep-fried and enjoyed in the summer heat is one of the most enjoyable things an American can ask for.
My Uncle Jack made his own custom fish-frying rig that would self-regulate temperature and allow the grease to drain from the fish and fries before it hit our plates. He used this rig for church fish-fries as well as family fries, of course.
I now have a job where I know too much, and it’s affecting my peace of mind. I have learned through our state’s testing program, that some of our waterways have catfish with too much arsenic in them for my taste.
In 2023 there were 36 advisory listings for channel and/or blue catfish in Alabama. More specifically, there were 11 one-meal/month mercury advisories, 20 two-meal/month advisories, 3 one-meal/month PCB advisories, and two no-restriction listings (Baldwin and Washington County). Baldwin County had the most frequent listing for advisories (5) followed by St. Clair (4).
Our partners upstream, Coosa Riverkeeper, have put in the work to know how anglers feel about these advisories. Less than half of anglers know about fish consumption advisories on the body of water they fish regularly. However, nearly nine out of ten of angler surveyed, said they would heed the advisories if they knew about them.
This isn’t to say they would fish less. On the contrary, states such as South Carolina have great fish consumption advisory programs, with signage available all over the state that clearly shows where the fish are safe to eat. Since initiating the program South Carolina has seen an uptick in fishing that many attribute to more awareness of fishing because of the signage.
Anglers, especially catfishermen, who are out there to catch a meal want to know what is in their fish so that they can make informed decisions for their families. We must make public information public.
Luckily the bodies of water that I grew up eating catfish out of have only a few advisories, and I am very glad to know that.
Final Thoughts
Catfish are hard-fighting fish that will squall your drag. But the main reason to catch catfish is their well-deserved reputation as fine table fare.
