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Catching, keeping and carrying bait can be almost as much fun as the actual fishing. It can be lots of fun for any fisherman and children love to come along on fishing trips and help with the bait. They can learn so much about the natural baits, and their stages of growth and environments.
A fisherman must be familiar with the shoreline where bait and game fish feed, spawn and live to be able to catch minnows, crawfish and frogs. He learns the stream and its nymphs and larvae, and all sorts of valuable information which he can use in the same pools or runs in later fishing action.
Gathering worms and land insects can be fun and similarly instructive. You can find them in damp acid ground, manure piles and in compost. Be careful not to waste them and please only take what is needed and keep them alive, as these will produce better fishing action. You will need some equipment to catch, transport and preserve bat for stream or boat fishing. There are lots of top quality equipment available at your local fishing outlet.
A worm box made with screen wire can be your worm "factory," or you can even set aside a section of your garden. After introducing worms, keep the earth moist and work in cornmeal or compost to feed them and keep them alive. There are also various mail order companies that will be advertising in the fishing magazines and you know
you'll have several of those magazines lying around. These companies also sell both bait and equipment for raising worms and other baits. To condition worms, place them in damp sand for a few hours. They will scour themselves and become tough and redder.
Live frogs make excellent bass baits and they will catch other fish as well. "Frog harnesses," convenient for baiting up with frogs, are available at many tackle stores. Frogs may be fished either shallow or deep, or "skittered" across the tops of lily pads.
There are also aquatic insects such as; stonefly larvae, caddis fly larvae, mayfly nymphs, dobson flies, hellgramites and whatever "wormy looking" aquatic insects one chances to collect. Check your local fishing laws as some area will prohibit collections of these insects.
I have found the dragon or dobson fly larvae to be one of the best and strongest. These are obtained from muddy stream bottoms by digging and screening. You will keep these in screened boxes filled with three to four inches of mud and submerged in water at about the same temperature of the location from which they originated. They will eat each other, however, unless fed chopped worms and small insects. The stonefly must be kept in water as cool as the stream from which it came. Place these insects in a container with rocks and slime from the same general location of capture. Do the same for mayfly nymphs and caddis larvae. These will build the sand and refus cases in which they live. They won't keep long, only a few hours, unless in very cool and aerated water. They can be baited dead, however.
The crayfish is one of the most versatile aquatic baits for all game fish. These can be found along the shores of most lakes and slow rivers and can be seen easily at night by flashlight in rocks, grass, weeds and along the shore. You will need to use a small dip net, but be very quick as they can dart right back into the water before one has a chance to dump them into the minnow bucket or a similar container. They are very anti-social with regard to their fellow crayfish, and they will kill each other unless given a piece of meat or fish to divert their attention. Keep them in cool water similar to their natural habitat. Get a large container with a few rocks, some gravel and a good supply of weeds or grass from the lake. If you only plan to keep them a short time, snip off their claws as you won't need them anyway.
I also use live minnows that are taken in seine nets, baited minnow traps, baited dipnets and occasionally by angling. Minnows can be kept in a screened box placed underwater in the lake or stream being fished.
Land-bred insects such as the grasshopper, cricket and the beetle are among the easiest to find and catch and they are excellent baits for panfish and trout. They're easy to bait up due to the hard shells and thorax into which the hook is inserted.
Moths, millers and large flying bugs and insects can be used to bait. These will die quickly, but they can be used on light leaders and small hooks for panfish and trout.
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