The hands-down favorite bait for catfishing on the Mississippi River is skipjack herring. Herring are usually plentiful but get harder to find when winter rolls around.
Many anglers have perfected the art of catching and quick-freezing herring for later use, but the fish tend to get mushy quick when thawed.
As a substitute, veteran catfish angler Mac Byrum suggests trying chicken.
Catfish anglers are no strangers to unusual concoctions, but catfish bait recipes typically border on rancid, which does not make the angler hungry at lunch. Byrum has an answer —garlic chicken, which can be prepared ahead of time.
“You can start with bone-in or bone-out but you’ve got to take the bone out to do this,” he said. “In the summertime, I use a cut that you could lay a 50 cent piece on, but in wintertime, I go down to the 25 cent piece.”
Byrum reasons that a catfish’s metabolism is much slower in the wintertime than in the summer so smaller baits are more productive. The guide suggests cutting the bait first, then sprinkle garlic powder on just one side. He claims using more garlic will bake the chicken, making it stringy and reducing the blood content of the meat.
“I lightly sprinkle garlic powder on each 25 cent or 50 cent piece, depending on the season,” he said. “Then I put the pieces in a zip-lock bag, seal the bag and squeeze the bait around in the bag, which moves the garlic around,” he said.
After preparing the chicken, Byrum will leave the bag out on the kitchen counter about an hour or two to let the seasoning work. If he’s going fishing the next day, the guide will put the bag in the refrigerator. The bait can also be stored in the freezer, to be thawed at a later date without turning to mush like herring.
Byrun warns that with handling any raw chicken, be sure to wash your hands afterwards and before handling anything you intend to eat because of a risk of salmonella.
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