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We buy the outdated breasts out of the store and keep them frozen. Thaw out four to six and cut them into long strips about an inch wide. Double them so you have one side longer than the other and hook on a circle hook. If we are fishing down lake and in deep water, we use a 3/4-ounce weight on one side of a three-way, about 10-inches of line and the hook on the other, about 14 inches of line.

Drop to bottom and reel up two cranks. Never set the hook, just reel in and hold on. If fishing the tailwaters, we use spinning reels on medium to heavy action rods and 10# line, usually, no weight or maybe a light splitshot. Just let them run and start reeling.

Biggest to date is 68#. Lots of fun.

 

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Save the chicken for the pay ponds , match the hatch is always the best way to go ! Matching the regular diet will always produce bigger numbers and size. Around here the main food source is shad in the lakes and shad and skip jack in the river. I'd put fresh cut skip jack against any bait out, hands down !!

Some days you would win, some days you would lose. We are fishing the same waters so I doubt their diet is much different. From Ky. Lake to Chickamauga, it makes no difference. Catfish eat whatever is easiest for them to catch. As the turbines spit out cut up shad and skipjack, the catfish still readily hit chicken breasts, bream, shiners or whatever swims by or smells best at the time.

On the famed red River in Canada, I was told they would hit nothing but some special stink bait they sold. I was told wrong. They it that because that is what everybody was using for bait.

I don't fish for catfish much, usually only when it is really hot and nothing much is hitting. I don't propose to be an expert on them. I just fool with thyem now and then if I can't catch smallmouth. I just found over the years that a chicken breast is a lot cleaner to use and easier to obtain.

 

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That particular "pay-pond" is lake Chickamauga down near Chattanooga. We used nothing but chicken breasts bouncing the bottom in 25-30 feet of water on a ledge that dropped off to 60 feet. I think we caught around 30, between daylight and 10:30 with tops 32#. We had a lot of 10-15# fish. That would weigh about 18. :yes: