What's a good "grocery store meat" for cats?

I don't live anywhere near a bait shop, and while I have good luck with CJ's and Billy King's, sometimes I want to use some kind of meat chunks on a Kahle hook. What's a good kind and cut of meat to use for this that I can get at a small town grocery store? Chicken? Beef? Pork? I know there's liver, but it can be problematic to keep on the hook. I would probably put a chunk of meat on the hook and give it a shot of Baitmate. This is for smaller channels, like 12-16 inches. One poster on here uses chunks of chicken thighs. And please don't say "USDA Prime New York Strip."

someone told me to go to the asian store and get cigar minnows. never tried it though

I have had very good luck with fresh chicken breast.

Squid from the asain mart

No asian marts around here.....

I used to do good on jug lines baited with beef heart.

http://www.ayersfish.com/skipjack-herring-12-5-or-10-packages/


I’ve got friends that can’t throw a net due to shoulder issues and they use these skippies and catch good fish. Not as good as fresh but still effective...

I always have great luck with Blues using chicken breast cut into chunks, and soaked in Strawberry or Cherry Jello, and either add Real Mexican Vanilla, or minced Garlic in the jar. Let it sit a day or two in the fridge, and flip it to get a good soak, Then, divide it up and put it in quart freezer bags, and freeze.

I also do the same with hot dogs, and always catch Channel cat on them. I can literally catch channel cats on these hot dogs, when no one else is catching anything. They tend to prefer the garlic over the vanilla.

I've caught a bunch on Bar S wieners cut into 1 inch chunks

Shrimp is my favorite. Peel the shells and head off.

Welcome to the forum

If you like chicken liver, buy some ladies panty hose and cut it into squares. Wrap liver inside square and place on hook. Cheesecloth works too, but is a pain to remove from your hook without scissors. I prefer chicken thighs because of the higher fat content. Same reason for using Bar S hotdogs. Another good bait is fresh cut perch. If you are catching channels, you can catch perch in the same spot.

If you can catch carp around you, they make good cut bait. Lot of fat in them I guess.

Good luck,
Ken

Chicken hearts work great. Very tough and stay on the hook well.

Very Oily meat, like Shad

Buy some hot dog buns and charcoal while your at it, and if you don't catch any fish, you can have a shore lunch anyway!

I've had some very...good...success with boneless chicken marinated in cherry or strawberry jello. Get the cheap ready to expire meat. Very cost effective.

I have caught flatheads, channels, and blues on chicken thighs or drumsticks right out of the Wal-Mart meat section-
I just fillet if I want a chunk or small strip-
I used to use only breast and sometimes flavor them but no more-
I like the thighs and drumsticks because they are cheap and have been just as affective-
Leaving the skin on helps it stay on the hook-

I used to run sliced beef liver on trot lines when I was a kid. Then I learned how to throw a cast net.

Gizzards or bacon.

FYI

Albertson's has fresh chicken breast on sale this week for .97 cents per pound. About as cheap as I have seen it in a while.

Good luck all, stay safe.

Ken

using glorious bacon is sacrilege

The catfish think it is glorious also. It is one of my best “secret” baits. I fish it like a jig and they really like it. But don’t tell anybody.

My wife baked some chicken and she took the skin off. I saved the skin,. I am going to soak it in something (unsure what to soak in) and try it for cats.

Let us know how that sound does please-
Made me think about one of times I went out of Waxahachie lake, launched my pontoon, went out and cast net up some bait, spent about 5 hours or so and just picked up one small eater-
Came back to the launch and there was a couple there that had pulled up close to the boat launch and just put up a couple of lawn chairs, listening to the car radio, very stress free and low cost-
They had about 7 channel cats if I remember right, all caught on the trimmings of the pork chops they had cooked earlier-
Pork chop fat did better than my cast net caught bait that night-
So you really never know-

Nice!
And off of bacon!

Beef kidney is my all time fav. I stock up on ot when I find it. I slice it into small strips first, trim off as much of the hard white part as possible. Then I set it in a gallon ziplock bag in the sun for a full day.

2nd to that, I use chicken gizzards and hearts. I dont age these, most of the packages I find were shipped frozen and I dont want them to deteriorate more.

I fish rivers and creeks from bank, or tributaries far above lakes and I usually tear it up with either of these.
good luck

I use only chicken and duck hearts. Duck hearts are a lot bigger and a lot more expensive.

If you can find a market that sells Buffalo,(Fiesta comes to mind), buy one, have them filet it but tell them not to wash it. It's very oily.

Peanut butter and jelly stuffed in some of pouches made from my wife old nylon stockings. Just make up some little pouches about the size of rice packs used at weddings, stuff it full of your favorite PB&J, tie it up with an left over bread tie, hook it and send it in for a swim.

Any kind of chicken will work. Soak it in dead red spray. Shrimp works well too. If the channels are really feeding they'll hit almost anything. Corn, hotdogs, chicken liver, chicken gizzards, shrimp, chicken, tilapia, etc...

Honestly, I would focus more on finding the fish rather than what bait to use. Doesn't matter what bait you've got on the hook if there's nothing there to eat it.


P.S. Not sure if there's a walmart anywhere around you but they sell worms which always work very well. They'll stay alive for a very long time in your fridge if you want to stock up. Even longer if you feed em some veggie scraps.

An old-timer once told me that his go-to bait for channel cats is the cheapest hot dog wieners he could find. He said that he would take a big bubble gum jar (like you can get at Sams Club) and cut the wieners into 1” chunks. He told me that he would get a jar of minced garlic and pour it, oil and all, over the wiener chunks. He said you can leave this mixture in the garage a day or two to ‘ripen’, and then keep it in the fridge (if the wife says it’s OK).

He said it’s way better than stink bait because it stays on the hook better and you can wash the garlic smell off easier than you can the stink bait. I have never tried the recipe myself, but as OP requested, I’m sure you can find the ingredients at just about any neighborhood grocery.

Worth a try.

JR

The cheap red wieners covered in garlic have worked for me in the past..