Also, when the action is slow, it's a good idea to change out a chicken liver every half hour or so, as they do tend to lose pungency. Finally, at day's end, the best bet is to dispose of any remaining bait because fresh livers stay on the hook better than frozen and re-thawed livers.

As a final consideration, some grocery stores sell turkey livers, in addition to chicken livers, and those provide an alternative bait option. A little larger overall, turkey livers provide a good choice for waters that tend to serve up large channel cats. They also tend to be a little tougher than chicken livers. Turkey livers are not quite as strong smelling, however, and it is not the same smell. It's possible that on some days the cats will favor one flavor over the other.

DIP BAITS
A good dip bait would be every bit as sticky and icky as a chicken liver if you were to handle it with your fingers. The towel is less of a factor with a dip, however, because if you administer the bait properly, there's absolutely no reason ever to touch the stuff. A wooden spoon or even a good old-fashioned stick can do the job perfectly well.

Dip baits, whether they are "home brews" or commercial concoctions, such as Strike King's Catfish Dynamite, have a consistency that's somewhere between applesauce and Play-Doh and they smell sort of like someone mixed the two, along with a few other things, and left the mix in the sun for a couple of weeks. In the case of the homemade stuff, some period of "sun baking" often is part of the recipe. The best commercial baits aren't just stinky, though. They have a protein base and a meaty, fishy or cheesy smell that is uniquely appealing to catfish.

The term "dip bait" comes from the way the baits are most commonly applied to the hook. The hook itself is adorned with a sponge or a dip worm, and the whole thing is mashed down into the bucket of bait with the previously mentioned spoon or stick. Many dip bait manufacturers also offer dip worms, and often the worms come pre-rigged with hooks and leaders.

Most dip worms are either rubber tubing with holes punched in them or short, deeply ribbed plastic worms. Dip worms and sponges have the same simple purpose of holding more dip in place because the bait would wash away too quickly if it were simply wadded up and put onto a hook.

Dips perform especially well in rivers because the current carries the ever-dispersing bait downstream and forms a scent trail to the source, which is the baited hook. Because of the scent trail factor, anglers fishing with dips generally do well when they set up near the heads of big catfish-filled holes. Veteran dip bait fishermen also tend to work specific spots longer than they might with other baits because the ongoing dispersion of scent from multiple lines actually creates a chumming effect.

For the same basic reason, dips also work well for drifting approaches. The bait leaves a scent trail in its path, and the catfish follow the trails. For drifting, most anglers use an elongated weight a couple of feet above the hook and bait. For snag-filled waters, they'll add a small float between the weight and the hook so that the weight drags along the bottom and the baited hook follows just off the bottom.

Whether an angler is fishing stationary in current or drifting, it's important to check lines periodically to make sure there's still bait on each hook. The same dispersion that brings in the fish also diminishes the amount of bait on the hook on an ongoing basis. The rate varies substantially according to the current strength or drifting speed, the density of the bait and the type of bait-holder used.