Live Bait Fishing Techniques

Whether you are an amateur angler or a professional deep sea fisherman, the type of bait you use can means the difference between fishing success and failure. Live bait often works when nothing else will.

Live bait is a term that covers many different critters. This includes many different types of maggots, worms of many species big (nightcrawlers) and small, wigglers, crickets, and leeches. Live bait also includes small fish that attract larger fish. Some of the smaller variety includes minnows, sardines, pilchards, herring, pinfish, madtoms, shad, mackerel and crayfish. Most of the small critters can be found at your local bait and tackle shop or even ordered online. The small fish you might be able to buy and might be able to catch.

Here are some useful tips that will help you.

  1. Putting worms and other small critters on the hook isn’t rocket science. Just put the hook through them in a way that conceals the hook fairly well. Rigging small fish can be done in different ways to attract different larger fish.
  2. Choose the strongest and liveliest bait available. With small fish the larger ones are often the strongest.
  3. Use the smallest and lightest weight hook for the fish you intend to target.
  4. Hook big, fast bait, like sardines and mackerel, through the nose when surface-baiting. It will help slow them down and make them easier for predators to catch.
  5. Add weight to your rig if you intend to get the live bait into deeper water. Hook small fish through the throat or anal vent to get them to swim deeper.
  6. Keep fresh, live bait in the water at all times. This might mean changing bait every 5 minutes.

Tips: Treat bait with care to get the most out of its performance.

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