One of the best catfish baits available at you're your local grocery store is chicken liver. The blood in a chicken liver gradually seeps into the water providing an excellent scent trail for the catfish to find. Channel catfish and young (small) Blue catfish both will eat this bait up.
As with most catfish baits, they should be fished on the bottom with a slip sinker. One of the drawbacks to using liver for catfish bait is that it is difficult to keep on the hook when casting. This can be frustrating when you think you have a good cast but you see the bait fly off.
There are three things that you can do to keep fresh livers on the hook. Keep in mind that I use # 6 treble hooks for all of these methods.
1. When placing the liver onto your hook try to work it so that you only puncture it once with each barb. The more you try to get it hooked the mushier you make it. You will still lose your bait at times this way.
2. Put your liver on the hook as above but now take about ten inches of thread and wrap around the bait and the hook. Make it firm but not hard enough to cut into the bait. This stays on pretty good.
3. Take some old panty-hose or potato netting (from a sack of potatoes) and cut a circle out of it the size you want to put your bait in. I make mine about three inches. Wrap it around the chicken liver and use a small rubber band to tie it up. You can cast a mile with this setup and it will not come off of the hook.
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