A Guide For Catching Live Bait

So you are planning a fishing trip with family or long time buddies. You have your gear, your high aspirations of catching every fish under the sun, and your tackle box is fully stocked with an assortment of tackle. You spend a few hours trying out your tackle but yield no hits or bites, even though you see fish jumping left and right of your boat or pier. Maybe you need to change the odds in your favor and go with some bait.

If you are on a lake or river and the bait shop is closed or not accessible, there are alternatives to getting instant bait such as catching live bait yourself. Freshwater fish whether a sun fish or a musky will go after just about anything that moves and is smaller than them. It is obvious that the really aggressive strikers like Bass and Musky prefer bait that has a lot of movement to it and will usually require hooking a larger piece of bait such as a sucker or large size chunk of bait.

Worms

Of all baits, worms are pretty easy to acquire and accepted bait by most freshwater fish. I have hooked everything from blue gill to walleye with the aid of the trusty night crawler. Looking for worms is really easy. You simply look under any large rocks or objects that will contain the little buggers underneath. Crawlers can be easily accessible in the summer when you go out into a damp lawn after a nice rainstorm. Bring along a little coffee can full of wet soil and you will have access to a few dozen crawlers in no time with the aid of a flashlight. If you are exposed to dry conditions and crawlers are not available, choose an area in the yard or garden that you can dig and you will find yourself a few dozen earthworms very easily. I would recommend looking for worms as your first choice as easy to find bait.

Minnows