Now, it is possible to create your own punch bait for catching catfish, and many avid catfish anglers do exactly this.  It is generally agreed upon that cattails make a consistency that is good, and cattails tend to hang on to a treble hook pretty well to.  You may add any one of several ingredients such as blood, liver, heavily scented cheeses such as limburger or any pretty rancid cheese, pet foods such as commercially canned catfood, rancid hot dogs, shrimp, fish, rancid fish, garlic, anise, or lye soap mixtures doctored up to tempt the most discriminating catfish out there.  

Basically, you can thicken this with cornmeal, grain (the more rancid the better) meats, entrails, etc. until you come up with a consistency that will stay on a hook effectively.  Once that happens, just spice up your mixture with something like brown sugar, garlic, salt, etc. and you have a winner for catching catfish.  The consistency has to be right, though, because you have to be able to keep it on your hook to let the scent tempt the cats into taking a big old bite!

To get the full "A Guide To Catfish Punch Bait" article you'll need to download it here.