7 Live Baits and the Fish That Love Them

Throughout the East there are many different natural baits that shine for a variety of gamefish. Catching your own bait and keeping it alive isn’t difficult, and it can be a lot of fun gathering bait and keeping it frisky until you need it, especially when you involve youngsters. Here’s our list of the region’s most popular natural baits, how to catch and keep them and the species of fish they work best for.

EARTHWORMS

• Catching Them: The time-honored “garden hackle” can be dug up in almost any backyard plant bed. Following a rainstorm, abundant earthworms wiggle to the surface and can be found on sidewalks and driveways. Pouring a diluted solution of bleach, dish soap or mustard onto bare soil also can drive earthworms to the surface where they can be picked up.
• Keeping Them Alive: Fresh, rich, loose soil is best for storing worms. A small bucket works well, but be sure it’s open at the top. Keep it out of direct sunlight and do not allow rainwater to drip in. Worms require food if kept for extended periods, and can be fed fruit scraps like apple cores and even coffee grounds.
• Fish They Catch: Almost anything with fins in freshwater eats earthworms. Panfish, bass, walleyes and catfish are prime targets. Crappies may be the rare exception, as they prefer minnows, but plenty of hungry crappies have fallen to a garden hackle.

GRASSHOPPERS

• Catching Them: Hoppers are most available in summer, and almost any field with knee-high grass will have plenty. A large butterfly-type net works well at scooping them up, and it’s best to work a field early in the morning when it’s cool and hoppers are lethargic.
• Keeping Them Alive: Grasshoppers can be kept alive for days if stowed in a mid-size plastic container with a lid. It’s important that the container has plenty of small air holes throughout so hoppers can breathe. Put a decent amount of grass and a few sticks inside the container so the hoppers feel at home. Keep the container dry and warm but out of direct sunlight.
• Fish They Catch: Hoppers are deadly for a variety of freshwater species, particularly trout in streams or lakes. Smallmouth bass and sunfish relish hoppers, and large ones can produce big bass.

CRAYFISH

• Catching Them: Wading rocky creeks with a wide-mouth, tight-mesh dip net can yield lots of crayfish. Hold the net downstream of rocks as you turn them over and be prepared to snag any fleeing crustaceans. The most efficient method to catch these frisky baits, though, is to use an inexpensive, commercially-made, torpedo-shaped mesh trap. A number of companies make them, and they’re almost identical to a minnow trap, but the openings are larger for crayfish. Frabill and Bass Pro Shops offer good styles for about $15. Oily fish chunks or fish heads make the best crayfish bait, but raw chicken wings and canned cat food also work. Traps should be placed in shallow, muddy water in a lake, pond or creek. Check them daily.
• Keeping Them Alive: Crayfish can be kept for weeks in a large plastic tote. Keep the lid askew or drill holes in it. Put several inches of pond or lake water in the bin and add some grass, rocks and sticks. Crayfish eat many things, but some fresh lettuce will suffice.
• Fish They Catch: Crayfish are deadly on smallmouth and largemouth bass, rock bass, walleyes, catfish and, at times, even trout.

HELLGRAMMITES

• Catching Them: The same method of turning over rocks for catching crayfish works well for hellgrammites, a stream nymph form of the dragon fly. They have pinchers that can chomp you, but it’s no worse than a crayfish nip. A fine-mesh, wide-mouth dip net works well. Hold it downstream of rocks as you roll them over with your feet. Two or three anglers working together using a 3- to 4-foot-wide mesh seine is another great way to get hellgrammites, as well as crayfish, minnows and other stream-bed crawlers.
• Keeping Them Alive: Stowing hellgrammites in a small minnow bucket or plastic container works well. Keep the bucket in a flowing stream for aeration or use a small, battery-powered stone aerator to provide oxygen to your entrapped hellgrammites. Put gravel and small stones in the bucket so the critters have some cover to hide among until needed for fishing.
• Fish They Catch: Hellgrammites are a premier bait for trout, bass, panfish, perch, pickerel and catfish.

CRICKETS

• Catching Them: You can catch crickets by hand at night in garages, on porches and near leaf litter in home yards. A better way is to use a small, low-sided bucket trap, baited with breadcrumbs or fruit. Place the bucket near a light, like a porch or home floodlight. A small ramp leading from the ground to the bucket top can help.
• Keeping Them Alive: A small jar or plastic container with air holes in the lid works well. Place some leaves or sticks inside the container and add breadcrumbs for crickets to eat. Store the jar in a cool, shaded area like a garage or porch.
• Fish They Catch: Crickets are deadly on most sunfish species. They also catch small bass, catfish, carp and sometimes crappies.

MINNOWS

• Catching Them: A small, commercially-made, torpedo-shaped minnow trap costs less than $15. Several placed around the shallows of ponds or creeks will produce plenty of bait in short order. Bait the traps with bread or a can of cat food with holes punched in it. Traps placed near shore, the edges of grass beds, brush piles and docks are effective.
• Keeping Them Alive: Minnows can be stored in the traps used to catch them, but a standard minnow bucket is good, provided it’s placed in a pond or creek to keep the bait’s water well aerated. A small cooler with a battery-operated aerator with an air-stone bubbler will keep minnows lively.
• Fish They Catch: Most sportfish love minnows, including bass, trout, stripers, perch, crappies, sunfish, walleyes, pike, pickerel and catfish.

LEECHES

• Catching Them: A simple leech trap made from a folded-over aluminum pie plate works well. Place a large lead sinker or a few rocks inside the plate with a good-size chunk of some type of meat scrap, fish head or guts for bait. Fold over the pie plate with the rocks and bait inside. Pinch the pie plate closed around its edges, leaving a small opening at one corner for leeches to enter. Also punch a few half-inch-wide holes around the pie plate to allow leeches in. Fit a heavy line to a hole in the folded-over pie plate and sink it to the bottom of a swampy area, creek or pond. Set several traps in different areas, and check after a day or so for leeches. It’s easy to retrieve the sunken pie plate trap, open it, pour out caught leeches, rebait the trap and send it back down for more bait.
• Keeping Them Alive: Leeches should be stored in a container with cool lake, pond or creek water. Changing the water regularly is a must. Stowing them in a refrigerator is good, and they don’t need to be fed. They also can be kept lively in a special tight-mesh bait container, like those available from Lindy. The mesh container can be kept inside a larger bucket or cooler or even placed in a pond or creek to keep baits healthy.
• Fish They Catch: Leeches are one of the best baits for smallmouth bass and walleyes. They also tempt northern pike, trout and panfish.

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This article was featured in the June-July issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe

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