I'm back surf fishing while I wait for the heat to die down a little bit. I'm having great results digging out sand fleas for bait.

 

This got me me thinking. Does anybody do the  equivalent of this for bass? I know folks do minnows. I used to do worms for panfish.

 

Anybody out there using live bait they find? If so, what works best for you? 

I hate buying live bait and I use it probably more than a majority of bass anglers do. Crawdads can be caught by hand easily. I cast net shad and sometimes shiners. Small bluegills and sunfish are easy to catch on rod and reel. Sometimes, I even have to food chain my way to bait, catching grasshoppers or worms to catch bluegills or sunfish to catch the bass or catfish I'm really targeting. 

Before my fake shoulder failed I used to flyrod for bluegill for striper bait.

In MN you're allowed to net minnows - anything else has to be returned (can't use sunnies, perch, etc for bait here). You have to use them in the water you caught them in, and you can't return them when you're done for the day...have to trash them.

 

Too much to go through so most people just buy them from the bait shops.

33 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Crawdads can be caught by hand easily

Blue, are you a wizard or something?! The crawfish around here are as fast as lightning. You’ll flip a rock and the only evidence there was a craw there is a mud cloud. Too fast to even see. 

5 minutes ago, Jar11591 said:

Blue, are you a wizard or something?! The crawfish around here are as fast as lightning. You’ll flip a rock and the only evidence there was a craw there is a mud cloud. Too fast to even see. 

There’s a lot of different varieties of craws. I don’t know what kind we have but they’re more fighters than they are runners.

The last time I used live bait was 2 years ago.

This lake that the wife and I were camping at had a major cicada outbreak.

They were buzzing all over the top of the water so I simply grabbed them, hooked them and casted.

The Smallmouth were in a feeding frenzy and occasionally hit the one with a hook in it. 😄

Other than that, I'm all artificial.

Back in the day I tried catching nightcrawlers at night.

 

My gosh I was HORRIBLE at it.

I've told this story in other threads but growing up my grandmother had a bait shop.  My dad would pick worms at night for hours on end to fill the shop in the spring.  I'd help here and there, but I was fairly young at the time.  I did learn how to do it though so every spring when the worms first start coming out at night I'll usually pick a couple dozen and drop them in the fridge.  I don't fish bait for bass, but if I go for trout I'll take some small worms with me.  Also good for taking kids fishing.

 

I've been meaning to get a minnow trap so that I can do the same.  We have a creek at the bottom of the hill with plenty in it.  Again, I'll grab a bucket once a year or so (purchased) to take a non-angler fishing.  Growing up though we'd seine them and then take a bunch in the creeks for smallies.  4' long seine on bamboo poles and walk through the smaller pools in the local stream.  You herd them towards a shallow flat and then slide the seine up under them.  We'd usually flip some rocks for crayfish also, but a seine was better.  Find a good undercut tree root and put the seine up under it, then use the poles to knock the crayfish off the roots.  And you'd always end up with a trout up under one here or there.  Always fun throwing the seine up under a tree and pulling out an 18" brown trout (which was released of course).

I don't but lots of guys in the ice fishing community up here trap their own minnows. There's a small group of Pike and big bass guys that will catch and use BIG golden shiners as bait. 

3 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Sometimes, I even have to food chain my way to bait, catching grasshoppers or worms to catch bluegills or sunfish to catch the bass or catfish I'm really targeting.

 

Very cool! I'm considering doing the same on the beach because fresh bait is scarce at the tackle shops here. Sand fleas for sea mullet and croaker, with the too small to eat ones becoming cut bait for blues and drum.

 

I'll stop there in the food chain because anything bigger than drum is probably a shark and I'd rather those stay well away from me. 😂

 

I'll give your method a try on the bass side soon. 

Sand flea? Is that the same we call sand crabs in the west coast?

California has strict regional laws for harvesting live bait for fresh water fishing, need to check your specific regulations.

Transporting live bait or game fish is illegal. Using a cast net is illegal for fresh water fish. Generally you can use up to a 40” diameter dip net to catch live Shad to be used in the lake they were netted. Bluegill are allowed in the Colorado River for Catfish bait, no where else. Crawdads can be used where caught, not transported. No restrictions on worms including night crawlers.

Very few or no live bait shops in business today for bass fishing use. 
Tom

PS, the Quagga and now Golden mussel infestation killed the fresh water live bait business in California.

Only if opening 42 tabs on chrome and leaving them open for 4 days before I click pay counts. 
 

scott

I always fish with lures, but if I manage to catch a stray crawdad or a large grasshopper, I'll happily use them for bait. But it's always a spur of the moment thing, and never pre-planned. 

1 hour ago, WRB-2.0 said:

Sand flea? Is that the same we call sand crabs in the west coast?

 

Had to look it up. Looks like the same genus, but different species between the coasts. Guess folks also call them mole crabs. 

9 minutes ago, IcatchDinks said:

a large grasshopper

 

How are you presenting that? Beneath a bobber on a worm hook? 

Back when I was a kid digging up a coffee can full of worms was a right of passage. My grand dad was lazy. He had made an electric " worm getter" . Soak the ground for a while, stick two probes in the ground, plug it in and watch the worms come shooting up.

47 minutes ago, Rucksack said:

 

Had to look it up. Looks like the same genus, but different species between the coasts. Guess folks also call them mole crabs. 

 

How are you presenting that? Beneath a bobber on a worm hook? 

 

I usually catch and use them when bank fishing a shallow river. I'll put em on a worm hook, with split shot, usually no bobber, and cast it upstream, letting the current carry it through the places I think the fish are hiding. Problem with grasshoppers are that they are so soft bodied, they rip off the hook super easy. It's got to be a gentle cast, and if you hang up on anything, you'll have to rebait your hook. But everything from creekchub to Smallmouth will eat it. Kind of like rolling the dice on what species you'll catch. 😆

3 hours ago, Rucksack said:

 

Had to look it up. Looks like the same genus, but different species between the coasts. Guess folks also call them mole crabs. 

 

How are you presenting that? Beneath a bobber on a worm hook? 

Thanks👍 Surf fishing we use a dropper rig.

For my types of fishing bait is not necessary, and my boat, in its 8th year, has never had any live bait in it.  I know it's needed for some, but I don't do that.  

As a youngster, we would collect bagworms, and use the caterpillar inside for bait on farm ponds.  We’d fish them like grubs, slowly on or near bottom for bass.

Good times!

All the time. Cast net for shad and stone rollers, worms from the yard, corn from the garden, bread foraged from the grocery store, etc 

As a young lad at night after a rain it was nightcrawler time, collected in an old coffee can.

Helped my cousin who was 10 years older than me seine a river for shiners.

Here in Jersey can't use a cast net in freshwater.

Used to seine in saltwater rivers/bays when going fluking, still enjoy that to this day.

You never know what you could bring up on a pull, snapper blues, baby stripers, weakfish, flounder, spearing, sennets and even sea horses and some things you didn't know what it was.

 

 

When I was a youngster working with my older brother on a boat landing dragon fly nymphs ( Darner) would climb on the side wooden docks and catch them to sell for bait. Everything eats Darner nymphs that were about 1 3/4” to 2” long. Trout anglers were my best customers. I put the nymphs is wet moss in a discarded meal worm container customer discarded in the rental boats.

Paid for my bass plugs with the nymph sales.

If you have big dragon flies you have Darner nymphs, they live around wett wood or under rocks, look like today’s Ned worm with legs.

Tom

I used to use an old screen in creeks to catch hellgrammites (or Dobson as they were called locally).  Of course, it was easier to do with two people...one to hold the screen and one to stir up the bottom and/or lift rocks up, but I could do it alone if necessary.  If I felt fancy, I would find some loose screen and build a frame that allowed the screen to bow in some, which made it easier to keep whatever you stirred up.  Bonus was you would get crawfish and sometimes minnows too. Downside was sometimes you would get a snake. None of our local water snakes are venomous but they could give you a nasty bite if you were not paying attention to what was caught in the screen. Not to mention the "surprise factor" when a big old pi@@ed off snake went over the top of the screen and into your legs. When that happened, I could walk (run) on water.

Hellgrammites hands down were the best smallie bait in rivers, it was crack to them.