Homemade Catfish Stink Bait: 3 Simple Recipes That Work
Stink bait works for one reason: catfish hunt by smell and taste, not by sight. A catfish’s body carries more than 100,000 taste buds, spread over its skin, fins and especially its barbels, so it can taste the water it swims through and follow a scent trail to the source. Stink bait is simply the strongest scent you can put on a hook. Here are three homemade recipes that work, and when to use them, from our complete catfish fishing system.
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Know Which Catfish It’s For
Stink bait and dough bait are most effective on channel catfish, and to a lesser degree on bullheads. Blue catfish respond to it inconsistently at best, and flatheads almost never. They’re live-bait predators. If you’re after blues, use fresh cut shad. Our guide to the best catfish bait for each species breaks it all down.
Why “Stink” Works
For most baits, fresher is better. Stink bait is the exception. Controlled aging and fermentation increase the release of the amino acids catfish are most attracted to, and those compounds travel a long way through the water. That’s the whole idea behind the smell.
Recipe 1: Classic Cheese and Blood Bait
- Ingredients: aged, strong cheese (many anglers leave it out on purpose to ripen), chicken or beef blood, and flour as a binder.
- Method: mix the cheese and blood into a paste, then add flour a little at a time until it’s thick enough to stay on a sponge or treble hook.
- Best for: channel catfish in warm, still water.
The dairy proteins and blood together make an extremely strong scent that channel cats go after.
Recipe 2: Hot Dog and Garlic Soak
- Ingredients: hot dogs cut into bite-size chunks, minced garlic, a few drops of anise oil, and a splash of water.
- Method: combine everything in a sealed container and let it soak for 24 to 48 hours before you fish.
- Best for: channel catfish. It’s the easiest and cheapest recipe of the three.
Garlic’s scent compounds travel very well through water, and hot dog chunks stay on a regular hook far better than paste.
Recipe 3: Fermented Grain Dough Bait
- Ingredients: flour, cornmeal and water.
- Method: mix into a dough, seal it in a container, and let it ferment at room temperature for 2 to 3 days. It should smell sour and pungent. That’s the goal.
- Best for: channel catfish and bullheads in warm, still or slow water.
Fermentation produces the same kind of amino acid compounds catfish are wired to detect from a distance.
How to Fish Stink Bait
- Use the right hook. Paste baits won’t stay on a regular hook. Use a treble hook with a sponge or a hook made for dough bait. Hot dog chunks are the exception and work on a standard hook.
- Fish still or slow water. Fast current washes the scent trail away too quickly and can strip the bait off the hook. In still water, the scent builds a strong cloud around your bait.
- Fish it warm. Stink bait works best at 75°F and up, when catfish are most active. Summer is prime stink bait season.
- Use a slip sinker rig. The sinker slides, so a channel cat can pick up the bait and move off without feeling the weight. See our slip sinker rig guide for the step-by-step.
When to Leave It Home
- Strong current: use cut bait. It holds up better and spreads scent downstream.
- Cold water: in winter, fresh cut bait usually beats stink bait. Cold slows down the fermentation that makes stink bait work.
- Flatheads: live bait, every time.
A Cheap Store-Bought Backup: Chicken Liver
If you don’t have time to make bait, chicken liver is one of the best low-cost baits for channel catfish. It’s full of blood and scent. It’s also soft and washes off easily in current, so wrap it with bait thread or tie it in a small piece of pantyhose to keep it on longer.
Storage
Keep homemade stink bait in a sealed container, away from your other gear, your cooler and your food. The smell is strong by design, and it will get on anything nearby. Refrigerate it between trips.
Stink bait is also a great choice for a relaxed evening on the bank with a few rods out. Our guide to night bank fishing for catfish shows how to set that up.
Tight lines,
— David
