Store-bought, such as . . . ?
Live bait, such as bream?
Etc.?

I use bream (bluegills), caught and iced the evening before going catfishing. This is to backup for my seriously inconsistent shad netting abilities. In the winter, I’ll use cut carp and buffalo because the ‘gills can be tougher to find. Again, these are backups for shad. Whole or cut is going to depend on what the cats want and the size of what I have on hand.

#1 Gizzard Shad
#2 Threadfin Shad
#3 Carp
#4 Perch
#5 Drum

Simply the correct answer is "MEAT" LOL. A dip or dough bait might get you more. But for bigger fish I use meat.

I am really learning to use bigger baits and with that said, I am finding it harder to locate large shad. So my "go to" bait has been perch and carp. I will typically go out the night before, catch 1-2 carp put them on ice and use them for cut bait the next night.

Shad is always best, but I find myself throwing the net way too much and for too long before I find a decent amount of big shad.

ALso. I never use frozen bait. They don't bite it as well as fresh.

If you wanna catch channels they're lots of options but Vienna sausages works pretty well. I don't think it would stay on in strong current tho

I like cut drum with a shot of Dead Red. I fillet, leaving the skin side on, and then cut into strips four or so inches long. By leaving the skin on, it makes for a bait that's harder for bait stealers to get off.

If you have an Asian market within driving distance, they often have fresh Pacific sardines on ice. These are great cut bait because they are oily and smell like a well diggers behind. Even frozen ones will work well but they will not stay on the hook like fresh.

Don’t get stuck only using 1 type of bait. We use whatever we get in the net and let the fish decide what we fish with. We use shad and bluegill for smaller cut baits in the summer. Bluegill and Gizzard shad chunks stay on the hook the best. Threadfin work great also but don’t stay on the hook as good. When using threads you often reel in all the rigs and they are picked clean so pay attention to which rods are getting bit and check those baits often. I use threads when gizzards or gills aren’t working. Some days the fish will only eat one particular bait cut a certain way so give em a variety of baits cut different ways. Chunks, heads, filets etc. make sure you scale all your baits to keep the scales from fouling your hook.

When using big baits I will use almost anything we catch in the net that’s around 10-12” long. I like a 5-6 inch chunk about as big as my hand on my inside rods and a 10 inch bait on my planer rods. I chop off the tails and scale whatever bait we use and the bigger baits on planer rods get a stinger hook in the tail. Big gizzards, big sunfish, small carp, small drum, small Buffalo are all on the Bluecat menu. Hopefully someday they will let us start using White and Yellow bass like they do in some other states cuz they are some of the best Trophy Bluecat baits. It’s almost time for 10” baits and stinger hooks y’all!! Hope everyone catches their new PB this season! See y’all on the water!!🤘🤠🤘

Whatever the dominant native prey species in the lake happens to be. Cut bluegill stays on the hook longer, in my experience, but shad and related species are slightly better if one can rebait often enough.

Plus #1 on the cut baits.

Exactly! Cannot for the life of me figure out why TPWD has white bass listed as a game fish. I'm fine with keeping the size limit in place just take them off the game fish list please!

El Gato you are right on about the different body parts...Went bluecatt'in yesterday for the first time this year and had a blast bringing in nice fat blues in the 5 to 7 pound range...I like experimenting a lot when I drift and most of my best catches came off the gizzard's tail end cut....I definitely missed some big ones yesterday ...I may try this stinger setup you talk about

I have noticed that big Blues will often do an injury bite a lot like sharks do Serj. They swim up behind their prey and bite the hell out of it to injure it. Some days you will catch every big fish on the stinger and some days they inhale the bait and you catch em all on the front hook. I started adding a stinger on my big baits years ago cuz I would often miss big fish when using big baits. The back half of my big baits would come back bit clean in half, not nibbled on but bit clean in two by something massive! I Hate Missing Big Fish and the stinger definitely helps catch some of those bigger cats that bite your big baits in half!!!!

I second the stinger hook,
I have not caught any big blues, but I am catching cats mostly on the stinger when using perch or larger shad.
Also have fewer times I see a large chunk taken out of bait but miss the hooks.