There are any number of smelly baits (called stink baits) for sale at your local bait shop. Use worms and liver and you will catch more stocked catfish! Use Smelly Artificial Baits (Especially in pellet form)īecause a stocked fish has less experience with natural foods, smelly baits are more likely to attract them than some natural baits that a wild fish might recognize.

Liver, just by itself, is also an incredibly powerful bait for stocked catfish.Ĭatfish are largely driven by smell, so anything that triggers these instincts will work as bait on either a stocked or wild fish. Some fishermen will put a bit of liver on with the worm and swear that it increases the effectiveness. If you can get them, catalpa worms are also very attractive to stocked catfish. There is a theory that-even in farm ponds or hatcheries- the fish will have encountered worms so they will recognize them as food. The clear leaders in the natural baits are worms/nightcrawlers and chicken liver. This might lead you to think that stock catfish would have no interest in natural foods, but this isn’t the case. While a wild fish has grown up eating a variety of foods from its environment, the stocked fish has largely been eating pellets. The single biggest difference between a stocked fish and a wild fish is its diet. Because of this, it’s not surprising that there are some changes you can make to your fishing methods to increase your effectiveness. Stocked catfish have had a very different life before being released than fish that grew up in the wild. In those areas, this is a common way to get fresh catfish for dinner! Catfish is a mild, tasty, and very nutritious fish, so it’s popular eating fish, even by people who don’t normally like fish. People come to pay lakes and pay a fee to fish for the day.

In some parts of the country, there are even lakes called pay lakes that are stocked with catfish. Catfish are commonly stocked fish in municipal ponds and rural ponds. Ponds and lakes that are stocked with catfish are everywhere.

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