I don't know if you have big hard shelled land snails where you live, 2 inchs wide. But down here they make great bait. Just smash open the shell of the snail, stick a hook in the hard meat of the snail and throw it in the water with guts and all.
Another bait I have used for catfishing is I make a dry dough, reg. flour mixed with fresh fish blood and a little salt, works good, releases the blood little by little. A small current in the water will attract catfish from far away. But beware, if there are a lot of small fish where you are fishing, they will steal the bait.
Also if you catch some small Perch or other fish you don't plan on eating, cut up some bloody pieces of meat as bait, works good also. It is hard for the small fish to steal this type of bait.
Bloody Chicken liver makes a good catfish bait too, but fresh Chicken liver tends to fall easily off the hook. What I do is I give the Chicken liver a good coat of salt on both sides, then I dry the Chicken liver out in the hot Sun, half a day for one side, the other half of the day for the other side. The salt perserves the liver and drying it out makes it gummy and it holds better on the hook. Once salted and dried out in the sun, you can store them in a jar for future use. Also drying them out makes it hard for small fish to steal the bait.
Take in mind that fresh blood always makes a good attracting smell for catfish, the amino acids in the blood actives their feeding habit, they can't resist the bait once they smell the blood/amino acids. Most commercial catfish baits have blood in their recipe.
Eddie
