CATCH AND KEEP BAIT FOR FRESHWATER FISHING
DECEMBER 2020
Catching and Keeping Live Bait
Catching your own live bait can be fun and save you money. Having a ready supply of fresh live bait is often the difference maker between a successful fishing day and getting skunked. You can certainly go to the bait and tackle store and buy what you need, but is is much more fun for adults and kids alike to hunt and capture your own bait for freshwater fishing. This article will present great information about how to Catch and Keep Bait for Freshwater Fishing.
What is Live Bait?
For most anglers live bait for fishing is a box of worms or a bucket of minnows but bait choice can be much more complicated than just those two items.
The state of Connecticut defines live bait as:
Bait: Any animal or vegetable, or their parts, living or dead, used with a hook for the purpose of attracting and catching fish. Any fish legally acquired, except largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, chain pickerel, northern pike, trout, salmon, carp and goldfish may be used as bait.
Bait Species: The following species of fish, amphibians, aquatic insects and crustaceans may be taken by sport fisherman for personal use but may only be sold if taken under an inland commercial bait license.
Bait Species: Common shiner, golden shiner, fallfish, creek chub, spot tail shiner, bridle shiner, blacknose dace, longnose dace, pearl dace, bluntnose minnow, fathead minnow, cutlips minnow, chub sucker, white sucker, killifish, mummichog, Atlantic and tidewater silver side, sand lance, frogs (except northern leopard frog), crayfish, perch bugs, hellgrammites and mayfly nymphs.
Bait Regulations
Each state has complicated regulations on live bait species, how they can be caught and how they can or cannot be transported between bodies of water. These regulations are designed to keep bait stocks viable and to minimize cross stocking fish and contamination of certain protected waters. Here are links to state regulations for bait fishing.
Other individual state regulations can be found in our list of State Fisheries Departments from our article Finding Secret Fishing Spots.
Bait for Freshwater Fishing
The capture and successful keeping of live bait for fishing seems simple, but there are key items to be more successful. Live bait is attractive to most fish if it is lively and fresh. Minnows that are sluggish or dead will often not catch as many fish as frisky and active baits.
You can check our article on Fish Hooks for Live Bait Fishing for more information on bait fishing.
Minnows, Panfish
Minnows and small panfish are great baits for predator fish such as Pike, Bass and Trout. They can be caught with minnow traps, scoop or cast nets or at times with small hooks baited with worms or plastics. As mentioned above there are various rules on how you can legally catch baitfish, so please check with local regulations. Traps can be baited with pieces of bread or corn. You can “seed” an area with crumbs prior to launching the trap. You should check the trap every few hours. I have had freshwater eels enter traps and eat bait fish and minnows from a trap I left unattended for too long.
Once you catch bait fish it is important to keep them alive and frisky. Bait fish need clean water, proper temperature levels and essential dissolved oxygen to survive. There are 2 main ways to support oxygen levels – use a battery powered or electric aerator or perform partial water changes with fresh water from a lake or stream. You could do a partial water change with tap water, but it will have to be treated to remove chemicals such as chlorine. It is best to keep baitfish water cool or cold as this maximizes oxygenation capacity.
One of my favorite live bait aerators is the Mino-Mizer from Hypark Specialty. Unfortunately, as with many businesses in 2020, they have stopped production. I recommend if you use live bait often to buy one on Ebay or otherwise. The Mino-Mizer keeps bait alive by aeration and keeps the water temperature cooler.
There are many other bait aerators are bubblers that pump air into a submerged stone to provide oxygenation.
Rules for Keeping Bait Fish
- Keep water oxygenated
- Maintain cool water temperature (use frozen water bottles – not chorinated ice cubes)
- Keep water clean with frequent partial water changes
- Do not overcrowd baitfish. A typical bait bucket can hold about 2 dozen medium minnows.
- Bait species such as Alewives are very fragile and require constant freshwater flow and minimal crowding to survive
- Monitor your bait. If you see them gulping air at the water surface you should perform an immediate partial water change.
- Remove dead or dying bait and discard.
Worms
In many regions collecting worms for fishing is quite easy. You can look under areas where leaves or grass clippings collect or any compost pile. You can flip rocks or dig to find worms. It is not necessary to dig very deeply.
You can place a large piece of wet cardboard in a prospective area and check it the next day. Worms often collect in moist protected areas. You can create your own worm collection area, by creating a compost pile by putting vegetable kitchen scraps (not meats or fats) in an area that you keep watered. Worms should show up within a couple of weeks.
Nightcrawler worms can be collected after a large rainstorm by looking in driveways or road areas. This can be a fun activity for adults and kids alike as it requires agility and stealth to be successful. Nightcrawlers can be caught at night by exploring grassy fields at schools or golf courses. Use a dim light and walk softly to find the nightcrawlers laying on the surface. To catch the nightcrawlers, grab them at the base of their hole and pull gently. Here is a video from OhioDNS about Collecting Nightcrawlers as Fishing Bait.
You can also start a worm farm to have a ready supply of worms for fishing. Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm is a great resource for information and materials to start your own worm farm. Worm farms are easy to maintain and create rich fertilizer for plants and gardens in addition to being a continuous source of worms for bait.
Rules for Keeping Worms
- Keep the soil moist but not wet
- Provide air to the container, but don’t let them crawl out
- Keep worms cool. You can put them in a basement or refridge (see #2)
- If you are keeping worms for long term (more than 1-2 weeks), they can be fed with cereal or kitchen scraps.
Crayfish
Crayfish can be caught in areas where there are medium to large rocks. They are not typically found in gravel or sandy areas. Crayfish can be caught in standard funnel shaped minnow traps (see picture and link above). It is best to expand the trap opening to be about 2 inches in diameter. You can use any oily fish for bait either minnows, herring or whatever else you might have handy. You launch the trap and check it the next day. Crayfish are most active overnight. If you are not catching crayfish you can try another area or find a body of water with a better population.
As mentioned above there are various rules on how you can legally catch crayfish, so please check with local regulations.
Here is a video from Live Free Fish More on How to Catch Crawfish
Rules for Keeping Crayfish
- Crayfish require clean water and oxygenation, but are not as fragile as minnows
- Change water periodically
- Make sure they cannot climb out of your bucket or pail. I have had crayfish climb out of an uncovered bucket in my garage. Use a high sided plastic pail.
SUMMARY
Tight lines … Captain P.
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