I'm at a loss and am ready to throw in the bobbers.

Went catfishing a couple of times recently in a doggone farm pond, of all places, where I've had good success in the past with small but eating-sized catfish. The last couple of times I've used fresh chicken livers, hot-stanky-tough chicken livers, chunks of budget dollar-can spam - lot of oil in those! - and even punchbait.

Nada. Nothing. Caught one gorgeous bullhead and nothing else.

What's the go-to bait for you catmasters on the river or in ponds?

I like night crawlers myself. I'm headed to the G'ville dam on Sat and Sun if its not storming. You're more than welcome to tag along.

Thanks for the offer. If I don't go turkey hunting, probably for the only time this season/year, I'll let you know and maybe we can drown some of 'em.

Where do you live? You can go with me to Wilson dam sometime if you want.

Good bait depends on where you are fishing. for the river I like Skipjack fillets or shrimp. In ponds worms are good most times. Livers sometimes in the lake. Sometimes they just don't bite but it's usually good this time of year.

I used to fish over below Wheeler Dam on Wilson some with folks and would see guys up on top cutting up skipjacks, removing the guts and tossing the heads and remains over the rail into the water. I think they were selling the packages of guts to the bait stores.

Always wondered how many cats were under the rail there eating the fillets and heads.

I always had good luck with big night crawlers and cheese hotdogs in farm ponds fishing channel cats

I've always wondered if cutting cheap hotdogs in half and soaking them in minced garlic w/ juice and/or garlic salt would work.

Murrell Renfroe ran the Madison County Lake back in the 1990s and early 2000s. For the longest she would make her own catfish stinkbait by hand with cheese rinds and discards from a place in Ardmore along with cattails and I think anise and/or vanilla flavoring. She'd let the cheese sit for a while and get hot and mushy and stanky, then remove the cattail fluff and put it in the with the cheese, add whatever else, mix and squash and squish it all together, put it in jars or tubs and sell it. Lot of folks liked it.

May not be the best but get some cheap hotdogs. Cut into chunks. Put in a gallon bag and sprinkle with garlic powder and grape koolade. Just enough water to wet it. Let that soak a day or so. The guy that showed me this squeezes Preparation-H in his. But
I couldn't tell a difference. Nightcrawlers work good too.

Bream are about the best bail ive used. Seem to have good luck with hot dogs too

I've used old taters before with decent luck. Old being they had just started to get a little smell to them. Not rotten, just old.

I'm gonna buy a bag of frozen skrimps and try them out

I've seen the commercial catfisherman around here use small marshmallows on trot lines and jump boxes. They use rotten cheese in their catfish boxes. You can smell them at the boat launch long after they leave.

Heard a story years ago about some folks caught a big cat on a shrimp in the Paint Rock.
Clem, I wonder if the cats hadn't been fished out of your ponds. Aren't they kind of a put-and-take deal in a pond.

Cut shad always worked best when I use to run trot lines. Ran out shad one time and brought box squid back from gulf. Caught quite a few on trot lines baiting with cut pieces. When we used cut shad always threw head and tail away. Did not ever catch as many in hooks baited with heads and tails. This was all on tombigbee so I could not tell you about other waters

Night crawlers, fiddle worms or.........Ivory soap. Yeah, y'all go ahead and laugh.

Cut a square off about 1/2" x 1/2 " and put it on a cat hook. Commercial fishermen have been using it for decades

Know a guy used ivory soap on his lines. Never tried it

I've used shrimp on jugs on Eufaula and had good luck.

White soap works and so does marshmallows. For channel cats they eat any kind of junk food but blues and flats prefer fish most of the time. In a farm pond i'd try worms real shallow.

Guy I work with lives close to Cincinnati along the Ohio River. He swears by White Castle french fries. Says the cats love em. I think Krystal is about the same as White Castle. Just an idea thats out of the norm and cheap.

If krystals does to catfish what it does to my gut your gonna have one nasty cooler