When you first start your fishing adventures, you’re likely to have millions of questions. Many of them will be unique to your own perspective and viewpoints, but some are rather universal. One of the big questions that all anglers ask, at least once in their fishing lifetime, is “how do I choose my bait?”
First, let me preface this with the quick answer: There is no wrong bait choice…At least, not in the broad picture.
No matter how many rules you learn, patterns you track, or breeds you master; you’re going to discover that there are always out-of-the-norm variables. It might help to think of a fish as a kid that lives in the water. Some children are exceptionally finicky about what foods they’ll eat and when. Other’s are ready to try new foods at the drop of a hat. Most have a few things they absolutely will not eat. They have a couple of favorites that they just can’t resist. And, just to change things up, they’ll be relatively indifferent to everything in-between.
Fish are very much like kids.
The challenge for you is to figure out what kind of fish you’re working against. Every angler has her own system for testing the waters (a scouting mission, if you will, for a new fishery). Many have a “tried and true” system that they swear by. As a beginner, you’re not going to have that experience to fall back on. To get you started, let’s explore your options and give you a foundation to experiment with.
Generally speaking, you’re going to have three types of bait to choose from when searching for fish. There is live bait such as worms, insects, and small fish. Cut bait can be butchered fish, chicken, or just about any other type of animal you have previously harvested. What is most popular these days is the vast array of artificial baits (typically called lures). These options can be simplified a bit if you keep our discussion on catfishing in mind: Match the hatch. Now I’m not saying you must always use a form of fish as your bait. When we talked about selecting bait in “The New Angler’s Intro to Catfishing” we discussed identifying what your target fish typically eats.
Every style angler can learn from fly fishermen
Some of the best experts on this matter can be local fly fishermen. Every fish starts life eating the smallest food sources: plants, insects, larvae, etc. Some will continue into adulthood eating these protein sources. Others will graduate to larger, more filling food sources. No matter what the fish eats, its primary food source will be something it can readily find in the area.
The Jewel Beetle may be cool to look at, and you’re likely to get a bite (maybe even two) on a lure like this if the conditions are right.
Ultimately, however, when you’re fishing in the middle of Arizona you’re not likely to find any naturally flying by. Their lack of presence is going to significantly reduce your likelihood of getting good bite ratios, Simply put, the fish you’re targeting are not used to recognizing that color pattern as food. This is why fly fishermen go through the painstaking process of tying flys to match the shape and color pattern of the insects prevalent in the fishery they are hunting.
Identifying your natural habitat can give you solid insights into what bait your target fish will eat.
This process of identifying your local surroundings can work for any style of fishing and any type of bait you are wanting to use. If the bass in your local pond are used to eating frogs with a brown-toned color pattern, you’re not going to be as likely to get a bite on a red and yellow novelty frog. Does it mean it won’t happen? Definitely not. But you must prepare yourself for the reality that you may not get as many bites as you are hoping for.
The more you can affiliate your bait with the food your target fish already relies, the more you can trust you’re going to get a bite. A bluegill swimming around under your bobber may draw some attention, but it’s not going to be as much of a draw to a fish that has primarily eaten shad its entire life. A piece of carp bleeding out into the waters is more likely to draw the attention of a passing gar than a strip of chicken that he’s probably never seen before.
As a side note, it is important to mention that many waterways are heavily pressured. Either from ease and convenience or desperation, you will find some fisheries have been exposed to a heavy dose of foreign food sources (goldfish, chicken livers, stink bait). This can lead some fish to prefer these unusual baits. I can assure you, though, that this is a rarity.
Your bait doesn’t always have to be natural food sources.
This style of matching your bait to your surroundings has worked well with more modern artificial baits as well. There are now various options in “nuggets” designed to seep specific smells/tastes into the water. These chunks of dough (stink bait, power bait, crappie nuggets, etc.) are designed to imitate the taste and smell of various normal baits. You can find flavors like nightcrawlers, shad, and panfish. You’ll find they are significantly more successful in waterways that have low visibility because the fish are relying more on their taste buds than their vision. You can also get gels and pastes that can be placed on artificial lures. They make your lures smell like normal bait. By putting some of this gel on the feathers of a rooster tail, you can make it smell like a fry to the crappie you’re sailing the rooster tail past.
Soft baits can mimic a real fish or other bait with minimal effort.
Soft plastics are available in almost every color pattern imaginable, and they have the names to match. While many are more of a novelty product designed to catch the attention of the angler rather than the fish, you are bound to have a bit of luck with these more modern artificial lures. Senkos, Flukes, Tubes, beaver tails, and the like each have a designed purpose and can be very effective attractants. Again, however, you have to consider your fishery. The shape will be designed to represent a specific type of bait. Every plastics manufacturer seems to be developing his own scent pattern as well. Some will be more gimmick-based (garlic, strawberry, root beer, etc.) and have the intention of attracting that unusual bite. Others will be grounded in the traditional odors (bluegill, crawfish, shrimp, etc.) which is more likely to draw the frequent bite.
A word of caution. A fluke swimming through the water with a bass color pattern smelling like licorice and kiwi might seem interesting to you, but you’re not the one that’s going to bite the hook.
While hard lures hold their shape more easily and tend to last longer than any other type of bait, they are sometimes the hardest to present as realistic.
Hard baits are a unique and expansive world of their own. You can find lures to float across the surface, swim through every level of water desired, or peck their way across the bottom of the lake. You can get creatures that look like crabs crawling among the rocks or snakes searching for a meal. You’ve heard of a dog-eat-dog world? The water you’re fishing is a fish-eat-fish world. If it’s supposed to be in that water (or doesn’t normally belong there) and it’s smaller than something else, that something could be willing to take a bite.
If you’ve been researching fishing lately, you’ve no doubt seen the YouTube videos of late where novelty objects (ducks, bats, crocodiles) have been used to catch massive Large Mouth Bass. While this is always a possibility, it is more the exception than the rule. Once you become proficient with fishing, and you begin looking for creative ways to add challenge to your already daunting mission, you’re likely to explore some of these novelty projects for yourself. As a beginner though, I strongly recommend you stick to normalcy as much as possible.
Where do you go from here?
Artificial lures are the most common bait of choice for anglers teaching themselves to fish. Live bait tends to be the bait of choice for people teaching children to learn fishing skills. Soft plastics are typically reserved for more experienced anglers who are looking for a specific presentation and fishing style. Truthfully, however, you should pick what is going to work best for you. Some of that decision will be based on the fish species you’re targeting. Part of the decision will be based on the environment your fishing from. Most importantly, though, you will have to decide what you are most comfortable fishing with. As I said at the beginning of this adventure, there is no wrong choice.
There are easier choices and there are harder choices, but the beauty of fishing is that there really is no wrong choice.
The next article will be released in a few days discussing live bait: choosing, rigging, and fishing styles.