LOCKPORT, Manitoba – Just about the time you think you’ve seen everything, something new comes along that leaves you shaking your head.
Fear not, this isn’t a rant; it’s all good.
Quite amazing, really.
The stretch of Red River from the St. Andrews Lock and Dam in Lockport and downstream to Lake Winnipeg is one of the best channel catfish destinations on the planet, bar none. It’s a place I try to fish at least once every year and where I boated my “PB” (personal best) catfish, a 33-pound behemoth, several years ago.
Catfish that big don’t come along very often – even at Lockport – but fish in the 20-pound range are relatively common. That’s the kind of potential awaiting catfish anglers who fish the Red near Lockport.
Providing, of course, they have the right bait.
Historically, before going to Lockport, U.S. fishermen would catch goldeyes or buy suckers at home, freezing them to use for cutbait, or catch frogs and freeze them for the trip across the border. Beginning in late July and continuing well into August, the big Lockport cats tend to find frogs particularly delectable.
That all changed a few years back, when Canada banned the import of nightcrawlers and all aquatic bait, whether live, dead or frozen, as part of an effort to minimize the risk of introducing aquatic invasive species into the country.
You can catch goldeyes and frogs in Canada, of course, but catching bait takes time away from catching catfish.
With that dilemma as a backdrop, longtime fishing buddy Brad Durick, a Grand Forks catfish guide, his 15-year-old son Braden and I found ourselves scrounging for bait before a recent fishing trip to Lockport.
A Canadian friend who lives near the river gave us some goldeyes he’d caught a few days earlier below the Lockport Dam, and our host had some of her late husband’s old frozen bait in her freezer. A longtime friend and fishing partner – and a real stickler when it came to catfish bait – Jim Stinson died in March.
Given the bait challenges, Durick decided the trip would be the perfect time to experiment with a chicken bait concoction he’d heard about back in 2011 from a client who lived in North Carolina.
This wasn’t some vile, rotten-smelling stuff that uninitiated anglers might think of when they think of catfishing. This “recipe” called for cutting up fresh chicken breasts and slathering them with garlic powder and strawberry Jell-O powder.
Why strawberry Jello-O powder and not some other flavor, I’m not sure, but when in doubt, follow the recipe.
This was all new to me.
Stopping at a Canadian grocery store on the way to Lockport, we bought two packages of fresh chicken breasts, garlic powder (which I’d forgotten to bring from home) and two boxes of strawberry Jell-O powder. We pondered whether we should get sugar-free Jell-O or the sweetened variety.
Ultimately, we chose the sweetened variety.
We hit the water that first afternoon with the aforementioned goldeyes and old freezer-burnt Canadian bait, fully expecting we’d be up early the next morning to try catching frogs in a spot we’d heard would produce.
I missed a fish on a frog that had been in our Canadian host’s freezer for who knows how many years, and we’d landed a couple of catfish on the old frozen bait when Durick decided to hook on a chunk of the “Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken” mixture he’d whipped up before we hit the water.
None of us were expecting much.
But when he caught a catfish on the chicken bait – followed by another and another and another – it wasn’t long before all three of us had made the switch.
The catfish absolutely loved it.
Based on what I could find online, the mixture makes good catfish bait because the garlic powder’s potent aroma and the amino acids in the Jell-O powder attract catfish from a distance. The chicken provides a good base for holding the mixture, while the Jell-O powder absorbs moisture, making the chicken tougher and more likely to stay on the hook.
Still, even though Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken works in the South, I was skeptical that it would work in Lockport, where catfish seem to be even more bait specific than they are along the Grand Forks stretch of the Red River. I’ve seen times at Lockport when, if the catfish are going on frogs, all you’re going to do if you don’t have frogs is watch neighboring boats that have frogs catch catfish.
I’m not skeptical any more.
Over two partial days and one full day of fishing – roughly 15 hours total – the three of us boated 53 catfish up to 25 pounds. All but maybe half a dozen of those catfish came on Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken. Durick even had to mix up a second batch the evening before our third and final day on the water, an outing in which we boated 28 of our 53 catfish in about four hours of fishing.
He was cackling about the bait and how well it worked all weekend.
Whether this not-so-secret hot, new bait is the “be all-end all” for future catfish excursions to Lockport – and whether it works in Grand Forks – remains to be seen, but the results from our most recent trip were too convincing to say it was a fluke.
In three days on the water, the results were the same every time: Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken ruled the roost.
Go figure.
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