Yes, catfish do like chicken. There are lots of different parts of the chicken such as the liver, breast, gizzard, entrails, and really any edible part of the bird.
Catfish are meat eaters, so they will really eat any type of meat, chicken included.
So, now that we know that catfish do like chicken, the real questions are: is chicken a good catfish bait and how to catch catfish with chicken.
Yes, chicken is actually one of my all time favorite catfish baits. One reason is that it is very convenient.
You find it at any local grocery store for cheap. You don’t need to catch it yourself or pay high prices at a bait shop.
Chicken is also a very versatile catfish bait since there are so many different parts of the chicken.
I keep chicken in my catfish bait rotation year round because it is very effective.
Like I said before, there are many types of meat on a chicken. Each one is a bit different pros and cons.
So how do you choose which part to use? Well, you can use them all, but here are the details of each one.
Catfish love the chicken breast. The chicken breast is actually my favorite part of the bird for fishing.
The breast is very tough and durable. You won’t have any problems with it flying off while casting or having small fish tear it off the hook.
Since the breast very big, you can throw a huge piece of meat on your hook and catch really big catfish.
I usually throw chicken breast when fishing for big blue and flathead catfish.
Chicken breast is lean muscle tissue, so it doesn’t have much blood or scent on its own.
Adding scent to chicken breast is very popular, and I will talk about that more later in the article.
Chicken liver is definitely the most popular part of the chicken to use for catfishing.
Chicken liver is very bloody, messy, and smelly which is great for attracting catfish.
As you might already know, chicken liver is very soft which can make it hard to fish with.
It will get torn off the hook while casting or when it hits the water. There are ways to keep chicken liver on the hook, but it can be annoying.
Don’t get me wrong, chicken liver catches lots of catfish, but I don’t use it much because of the difficulty of keeping it on the hook.
Chicken gizzards work great for catfish. The gizzards are very tuff and come in the perfect bite sized piece.
The gizzard also has much more scent and taste compared to the breast. The chicken hearts are usually lumped in with the gizzards since they are about the same size and have similar properties.
The chicken gizzards work best for small to medium sized channel catfish because the gizzards and hearts are not very big.
The skin is very fatty and tasty which makes it a delicacy for catfish. It can be hard to get a lot of chicken skin since it is very thin and usually has to be acquired from buying an entire chicken.
I love getting a whole chicken and wrapping the chicken breast in skin before throwing it on the hook. This adds a bit of scent and taste to the breast.
Also read: Nightcrawlers for Catfish
Soaking chicken in different flavors gives it more taste and scent, which helps attract more catfish.
Like I said earlier, chicken breast doesn’t have much scent and flavor, so these strategies are very popular when using chicken breast.
It isn’t exactly a recipe, but Kool-Aid adds lots of scent and flavor to chicken breast.
Put the chicken breast in a plastic bag along with some Kool-Aid powder. Let it soak and marinate for a couple days.
The Kool-Aid will soak into the chicken and give it a tasty flavor that dissipates throughout the water.
This is the same process as the Kool-Aid. Just marinate the chicken in the strawberry Jell-O for a couple days.
Why strawberry? Well, I honestly don’t know. I have tested out many Jell-O flavors and they all seem to work well, but strawberry is by far the most popular.
Feel free to test our whichever flavor you like, but you can’t go wrong with strawberry Jell-O.
Garlic is actually my favorite flavoring to soak my chicken breast in. The garlic is not as messy as the other two flavorings and it seems to work a bit better.
Garlic is a very strong and powerful seasoning agent. Garlic powder soaks into the chicken a bit better than the sugary flavorings.
So, the garlic scent tends to last longer than the fruity Kool-Aid and Jell-O.
I have found that chicken tends to work best for channel catfish. Channel catfish are a bit less picky about what they eat and they love any types of smelly, tasty meat.
Big slabs of chicken breast work well for big blue and flathead catfish, but I mostly use chicken for channel catfish.
Pond catfish seem to eat chicken more than catfish in rivers and big lakes.
Chicken breast is the best part of the bird to catch big catfish. This is only really just because chicken breasts are big slabs of meat.
Big catfish love big meals. Big catfish are also wiser and more cautious than smaller, younger ones.
For this reason, I don’t recommend using scents like strawberry or garlic.
However, soaking the chicken breast in blood or guts can help give it some natural scent and flavor that appeals more to older, bigger catfish.
The convenience and price of chicken make it tuff to beat when you are in a hurry.
But if you have the time and energy, you can find better catfish baits. Nothing is ever going to beat fresh cut bait.
Fresh cut bluegill, shad, or sucker will catch you more and bigger cats. However, they are a pain to catch and prep.
Other than fresh cut bait, chicken is actually a top tier catfish bait. I have found that it out performs hot dogs and stink baits most the time.
So if you don’t have much time, chicken is the go-to bait.
To answer the question, “Do catfish like chicken?”. Yes, catfish really like chicken.
Chicken is a very cheap, accessible, reliable, and effective catfish bait from hot summer waters to the cold winter waters.
Try out all parts of the chicken and find which works best for you.
