Freshwater fish bait can include anything, either artificial or live, that attracts freshwater fish. Live bait for freshwater fish includes grasshoppers, worms, slugs, mudeyes, crayfish, frogs and baitfish. Artificial, or manufactured, bait includes plastic insects and worms, lures, flies, spinners and streamers. You can buy bait at bait and tackle shops, or you can catch your own bait.
Bait for Trout and Other Fish
Worms are one of the cheapest and most widely available baits for freshwater fish. You can buy them, or you can dig them up in your back yard. You can use red wrigglers, garden and scrub worms. According to Sea-ex.com, mudeyes, the larval stage of dragonflies, are a delicacy for trout. If you want to collect them yourself, look under submerged logs and under gravel and rocks in lakes. Bait and tackle shops also sell mudeyes, but they can be expensive. Grasshoppers are also a favorite food for trout. In the summer months, grasshoppers often fall into lakes and waterways where trout live. You can catch them yourself with a net in long grass when they jump into the air. Yabbies, or freshwater crayfish, are a large portion of the diets of trout and other freshwater fish. To catch your own yabbies, bait traps with meat or fish, or collect them by hand when they come onto the banks of rivers and dams at night. Trout also eat small fish, called baitfish. While trout prefer to eat live bait, you can purchase frozen whitebait at a bait and tackle shop. You can also use grubs and other insects as bait.
Bait for Carp
According to Sea-ex, carp enjoy bait made from either semolina or breadcrumbs flavored with dried insect meal made from shrimp, bugs, flies and worms; hemp seed; ground fish or fish oil; sugar cane molasses; dried mixed seafood made with small crayfish, water snails, shrimp, water flies and daphnia. Carp also eat any kind of nut or corn kernels, as well as bait made from meat such as Spam, pepperoni, dog or cat food, and lunch meats rolled into balls. They also hit on cheese and maggots.
What Not to Use as Bait
According to Gonefishingshop, you should not use salmon and trout as bait, because they can increase the spread of whirling disease, a type of parasite. Find out which bait to use for the specific type of fish you want to catch. Often the most knowledgeable fishermen are those people who work at local bait and tackle shops.
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