I have made fun of it for years. I just could not bring myself to even give it a shot. Finally, it became a reality to test because alternatives were running short. I gave in and used the old “chicken breast in garlic and Jell-O” for catfish bait.

The first I had ever heard of this concoction to catch catfish was back in 2011 when I was guiding Jake Bussolini and Mac Byrum from North Carolina when they were researching for their book, the Catfish Hunters. Mac was a guide on Lake Norman and told me that chicken and garlic was the hands-down best bait to catch blues that he had ever found. I remember laughing at the time and blowing it off.

Over the years, I read about it on the web; then in the next social media visit, I see a meme making fun of it. A few years back, a fellow Red River angler was telling me how well it worked, and again I blew it off. Two years ago, I was visiting with a guy from my high school who I had not spoken to in about 30 years, and he told me that that when he was in the Army down South, he learned about the best bait ever. He told me that since he moved back to North Dakota, that he can out-fish anyone with this secret bait. After some poking, I got him to reveal that it was chicken, garlic, and Kool Aid. I laughed at him and, well, that was the last time we have spoken.

Fast forward to August of 2025. My son, our buddy and I were going to visit the famous Lockport, Manitoba stretch of the Red River for trophy channel catfish. One new challenge to catfishing in Canada is that we cannot take any bait with us over the border like we used to.

Knowing of this challenge, we made some calls to friends to locate some frozen bait, and one even caught us some fresh goldeye. We fully expected to be up at the crack of dawn hunting frogs at a local golf course. We also knew that grocery-store whitefish would work sometimes, so planned to stop for the store for that once in Canada.

While picking up the whitefish, it hit me that we should buy some chicken breast, garlic powder and strawberry Jell-O. (I don’t know why strawberry, but everyone says strawberry, so we would roll with it.) My buddy thought I was nuts, but hey, we had nothing to lose at this point.

I cut the chicken into chunks, mixed it up by feel because I didn’t have a recipe, and put it in a Zip Lock bag. When we got to our first fishing spot, none of us put the chicken on and actually made fun of it. I finally caught a catfish on whitefish and announced that, “I will take one for the team.” I put the chicken on and threw it out, fully expecting nothing. Within ten minutes, I had a hit and a fish. I laughed the whole time that I reeled the fish in. I put on another chunk for another fish, and it produced again. After fish number, three everyone was fishing with chicken and catching catfish.

This bite went on for the next two days and we never did visit the golf course for frogs. In fact, we had to go buy more chicken to make more. I laughed for three days straight because it worked, and I felt a little guilty for blowing it off and making fun of it as bait.

My buddy did some research and read that the chicken is a protein, the garlic is scent and the bone meal used in gelatin has an amino acid that catfish can sense. Seems legit, and it worked on this trip.

Now that this worked, many questions came up. Was this a fluke? Will this work at home and be a bait alternative that I have been making fun of all these years? Are there certain times that it will work versus other times? I knew I would have to get home and do some testing.

As of this writing, testing has been minimal because I don’t dare test things like this while guiding. I did put an extra rod out with the bait (chicken gizzard) two times, both during tough conditions. The first time, the bait was picked up and moved, and the second, a 16-pound fish slammed it.

Anther day, I only had a half-day of guiding booked, so I took a friend out and we spend an entire half-day fishing with nothing but the chicken mixture. We fished many of my high-percentage spots. We caught a 15-pound catfish within five minutes of our start. After that, we just had pickups and drops for about two hours before catching two more smaller catfish. At one point, just to test the spot, I put two pieces of sucker out and caught two fish.

Later in the day, when I ran my guide trip, I used nothing but suckers while fishing the same section of river, but different spots. We caught 14 catfish.

My findings in the limited testing that I have done tell me that chicken, garlic and Jell-O will not be my go-to bait. It can be a good alternative when nothing else is working, and some days, it may work better than others. It may also work better in some bodies of water with different populations of catfish than others.

I know that there will be much more testing done and that it could add another element to the arsenal of catfishing. If it works, it will be a less-expensive bait option, and it is easy to get and always available at the grocery store. Anyway you cut it, I may be admitting that I was wrong to make fun of and ignore this bait for the last 15 years.