StoSoutdoors
                           

  "Fish comprise a large portion of the channel cat's diet and offer many advantages over other baits. You can use fish alive or dead, cut or whole. Catch your own fish for bait or buy them through bait dealers. They're easily stored, easily rigged and stay on the hook."
Minnows are available nearly everywhere. Other bait fish can be shad, skipjack herring, suckers, carp, chubs, mooneyes and small bream. "Ricefield slick" is a common Arkansas term for green sunfish, a member of the bream family. Use fresh fish--either live fish or cut bait stored on ice.
Match the bait's size to the fish you're likely to catch. In waters where you don't expect catfish over 5 or 6 pounds, stick to minnows or small chunks or strips of cut bait. Where bigger cats are common, 4- to 6-inch-long baits aren't out of place. Mash the head of whole dead fish so natural juices leak into the water.

  Nightcrawlers
Red worms are good for channel catfish work, but nightcrawlers are better. You can buy them in bait shops or get you own by raking through damp leaves in gardens, flower beds, compost piles and woods.
"A three-way rig is my favorite night crawler setup. Tie your main line to one eye of a three-way swivel and add drop lines 12 and 24 inches long to the other two eyes. Tie a hook to the longer drop line and a sinker to the other. The sinker should be heavy enough to hold the bait stationary on the bottom."
Another variation he suggests is to use a hypodermic syringe to inflate the crawlers. Adding a shot of air in the body lifts the worms up, making them more visible to catfish. Your sinker moves along the bottom while your crawlers ride high.

  Catalpa Worms
"The catalpa worm is the caterpillar of the catalpa sphinx moth. In spring, the female moth lays thousands of eggs on catalpa trees leaves. Within a few days, each egg hatches into a caterpillar with a whale of an appetite for catalpa leaves. The larvae grow fast and are soon one to three inches long and as big around as a pencil.
"Slapping the leaves with a long cane pole produces a shower of falling worms. Once they're grounded, they're picked up and placed in a container with a few catalpa leaves. Catfish fans like catalpa worms because they're tough and difficult for a fish to pull off a hook. One worm may catch several catfish. Once you've pinpointed a catalpa tree, you can gather lots of worms quickly and inexpensively, another favorable characteristic."

  Blood
Catfishermen have long made or bought blood baits to tempt persnickety fish. Almost any mammal or bird blood will work, but most anglers use chicken or beef blood obtained from meat processing plants.
To make your own blood bait, pour half an inch of blood in a shallow pan, then refrigerate or pack in cracked ice until the blood coagulates. The thickened blood is then cut into chunks and stored in a suitable container. When needed, a piece is pinched off and threaded on a hook.
Blood attracts cats quickly over long distances. Blood also keeps indefinitely when frozen. Bait can be thawed and refrozen as needed. Blood bait's most serious drawback is poor "hook ability" it won't stay on a hook very well. Try wrapping the blood bait in a small square of nylon stocking, pull the four corners together, then thread the hook through the corners, leaving the point uncovered.
Sutton readily acknowledges that other baits are effective on channel catfish. "If you're catching catfish on a bait not discussed here, stick with it. But when other baits fail to produce, give fish, blood bait, nightcrawlers and catalpa worms a try."