Speckled trout like this one can easily be caught with live bait.
Credit: Jeffrey Weeks | ©Jeffrey Weeks
Finding and catching your own live bait can be one of the biggest joys of saltwater fishing. Live bait can be a key to catching game fish like speckled trout, redfish, flounder and bluefish.
Since bait choices are many and diverse for inshore saltwater anglers have lots of opportunities to do the go-it-yourself route as opposed to buying live bait.
One important bait-gathering step is to buy a cast net. Whether you fish from pier, shore or small boat, cast nets are wonderful bait-catching devices that pay for themselves many times over. Don't buy a bigger net than you can throw. A cast net is measured by its radius, and a five-foot net is plenty big enough for most folks.
Cast nets allow you to encircle such quick prey as finger mullet and live shrimp. Finger mullet, running around in schools that can seem deceptively small when they're leaping out of the water, are a terrific bait for flounder, bluefish and redfish. Live shrimp are the absolute premier bait for speckled trout.
You will also find small pinfish if you use a cast net for long. Little pinfish are a neat secret weapon that will nab some nice flounder and big cruising speckled trout for you. Large ones can be cut up for strip bait.
In fact, it's likely that just about anything you catch in your cast net is being eaten by something worth catching in the area. Sometimes what you net tells you what to fish. Just make sure not to throw your cast net over rocks or oyster shells, or you'll have to buy a new one.
There are other simple ways of gathering bait if you can't throw a cast net. A well-laid minnow trap will yield results if baited and left long enough. This method will in particular gather mud minnows, a diverse species of small fish that are top baits for flounder on bottom rigs.
Of course, there is also the do-it-by-hand method of gathering live bait. Many baits are literally there for the taking.
Since bait choices are many and diverse for inshore saltwater anglers have lots of opportunities to do the go-it-yourself route as opposed to buying live bait.
One important bait-gathering step is to buy a cast net. Whether you fish from pier, shore or small boat, cast nets are wonderful bait-catching devices that pay for themselves many times over. Don't buy a bigger net than you can throw. A cast net is measured by its radius, and a five-foot net is plenty big enough for most folks.
Cast nets allow you to encircle such quick prey as finger mullet and live shrimp. Finger mullet, running around in schools that can seem deceptively small when they're leaping out of the water, are a terrific bait for flounder, bluefish and redfish. Live shrimp are the absolute premier bait for speckled trout.
You will also find small pinfish if you use a cast net for long. Little pinfish are a neat secret weapon that will nab some nice flounder and big cruising speckled trout for you. Large ones can be cut up for strip bait.
In fact, it's likely that just about anything you catch in your cast net is being eaten by something worth catching in the area. Sometimes what you net tells you what to fish. Just make sure not to throw your cast net over rocks or oyster shells, or you'll have to buy a new one.
There are other simple ways of gathering bait if you can't throw a cast net. A well-laid minnow trap will yield results if baited and left long enough. This method will in particular gather mud minnows, a diverse species of small fish that are top baits for flounder on bottom rigs.
Of course, there is also the do-it-by-hand method of gathering live bait. Many baits are literally there for the taking.
- Saltwater anglers have lots of opportunities to do the go-it-yourself route for live bait.
- One important bait-gathering step is to buy a cast net.
Comments
I am just checking you out to show support. I am not a fisherman...
I learn something new every day. Good article.
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