what do you use?

I myself hardly ever use it.

Sunnys original dipbait

Or

Live blue gill(small)

I kill em.on both. Went out today for a bit after work caught a few.

completely depends on the type of fishing, where, targeted catch, and conditions bro.

i do like some minnow fishing in lakes and ponds, and i always use live bait off the coast. but if im trolling coves then spin rigs are the way to go. it all depends.

depends on what I'm fishing for

my preferences are:
bass - crayfish (banned in Ontario!!) or worms
perch - worms
pickerel/walleye - minnow (dusk or dawn)
pike - lures + trolling (litteral) or casting.

Rainbow trout- big Ole worm or live minnow, pretty sure the minnow is illegal here though

i like to call fishing throwing metal into water.

bass pro shops is summers heaven. and when drinking on the shore, yea a worm a bobber and a bottle of scotch. the actual catching of fish, however, ruins this particular activity, i find.

Anyone ever try rattlesinkers for stripers btw?

AS FORD AND PANG STATED, IT ABSOLUTELY DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU'RE FISHING FOR.

BACK IN MY YOUNGER AND MORE RECKLESS DAYS, I FOUND GOLDFISH TO MAKE GOOD BAIT FOR CATFISH, ALTHOUGH THAT'S HIGHLY ILLEGAL IN MY STATE (AND PROBABLY MOST OTHERS)

Depends.

My favorite bait for shore fishing sacramento delta is pile worms. Catfish, sturgeon, and striped bass gobble em up.

Bass Like Minnows and worms. I've caught bluegill using chunks of Mackeral. Tilapia like doughie type stuff, you can make your own stuff using flour sugar coffee grounds and other spices along with oil and whatever else you want to use to attrack through smell and taste in the water. Catfish like chicken liver, but the chicken liver is moist so after you put it on the hook, wrap some string around it to keep it from being nibbled off.

Also the small fish that you want to use as bait hang out by the shallows, so if you go out early in the morning with a net and a flash light when it's still dark out you can net some live bait. I drop the net down all the way down and drag towards the shoreline to keep em from escaping.

I have found that if you sit by the water, drinking....folks will call you a drunk
But, if you sit by the water, drinking, with a fishing rod near by.....folks call you a fisherman.....and I am a damn good fisherman!

Chicken liver, as stated, is a pain in the ass.....better to by a piece of beef liver and cut it up into small pieces.

depends on species and body of water!

I bass fish mostly, and use plastic creature baits with heavy (45+lb) braided line and a 1oz weight and then just cast(flip) 5-15 feet off the boat into the thickest weeds I can find. 7'6 heavy rod with no drag, nothing like setting a hook with that setup.

I also go trout fishing and I usually use 2 rods for that: On one I will use a shiner either floating 3ft under a bobber, or rig up the line with a weight so the shiner sinks to the bottom but has 18 inches of line to move around. Can't use smelt in MA, unfortunately :( The other i use Metal/brass lures mostly (Kastmasters are what I have most luck with)

Also I have never fished salt water, no desire to, really. Not sure if that is relevant.

Entirely depends on what you're fishing for and where.

I'm still learning fly-fishing and have a cheap Redington rod, but that's mostly trout.

Otherwise, I enjoy surf fishing. With surf fishing, I tend to use mullet and squid. I pre-soak them in a bucket of the ocean water beforehand. Bloodworms work well too, but they're pricey.

And then if I'm deep sea, I almost exclusively use live bait and they're minnows or shad. If you go out with the right captain, they should be able to do some one or two kite rigs. Those things are amazing as they get the line far enough from all the boat noise and move around well (even works with artificial).

Lol, pretty sure the use of a flashlight in net fishing is illegal as fluff.

real men use their hands

todays "men" use all sorts of hi tech gadgets and lures and poles

Can't use your hands it illegal... Here atleast

whetted tree branches. it was good enough for thousands of years.

thanks obama

*Invites Trife to join in using hands to bring aboard sharks from trolling.*

;)

Speaking of hi-tech, I did just buy the i-bobber. I saw it on sale and decided I could use it to try to map out surf troughs a little better. I'm not as interested in it's fish finding feature as I am in the cartography aspect of mapping the bottom. Then again, I always catch little crap fish or dogfish sharks. Last time, I caught the same dogfish shark within half an hour of casts (same mark along it's dorsal fin, that or two sharks had a weird mark in the same spot).

Live bunker can be very effective for Stripers and Blues.

Uhh, I was just kidding.

Catfish - live nightcrawlers
Largemouth Bass - either or btu I love using lures, its more of a challenge
Crappie - minnow

unless I'm out on the massive farm ponds then I just toss in a stick of dynamite and call it a day

Caught a nice, big striper and so many blues that I lost count last night using bunker chunks.

thus far in 2015

mid feb - ice fishing - jumbo shiners - largest northern pike was 8lbs 1oz (won a nice ice fishing walleye rod)

last sunday - regular fishing - silver spoon with green eyes / 5 of diamonds yellow spoon - caught 5 northern pike in less than 3 hours in less than 7 feet of water, minimal weeds - largest one was only 14 inches - all were live release

shiners are horrible for pike so far this spring, last year wasn't too bad but i can't even get them to bite this year without using lures. i have tried medium, large and jumbo sizes ... they are working great for perch and out of season bass though

Haven't done the delta in ages, but usually do crawlers for the sac river for steelheads. Sometimes the lakes in the foothills trolling with spins. Crawlers for largemouth always work well too given you don't need to cast too far.

I've had great luck with old fashioned worm/crawler and bobber set-up. That's my usual starting point early in the spring season. Later in the summer I go with a super-duper or a red-eye for hitting the deep water big fish. I have small, medium and large sizes for each type.

super-duper - (http://www.troutprostore.com/...m/files/super%20duper.png)
red-eye - (http://s3.amazonaws.com/..._Wiggler_Lure-1.JPG/450/0)

For top-water baits I haven't had much luck with anything other than the jointed rapala. The bass and crappie really hit hard on the neon colored ones on a gray/overcast day.

I usually save the live bait for ice fishing. I'll use smelts where legal and shiners otherwise. It seems to be inconsistent results, though. Sometimes they're hitting hard (20+ a day) and then I've had weekends where I got one or two smaller fish (usually northern pikes) or nothing at all. Non-live bait seems to be completely ineffective that time of year.

Oh yeah, I caught 14 Bluegill in a few hours last week. Fished 5-6 feet deep with a worm and they were biting everytime I through my line out, I got a bunch of bait stolen and I lost a few when they slipped out of my hand. But you also have to keep in mind that depth means everything too. This was while it was warm out too. Fish bite more when the water temperature rises. So summertime is primetime, at least here in Arizona.

Anyone live in a state where bow fishing is allowed? Looks like fun, but illegal as fluff up this way...

we can down here. the rules fall under the spear fishing guide lines and seasons. In freshwater you can bow any fish that isnt a game fish, and in salt water any fish that isnt on a conservation list.

I salt-water fish and use squid and live minnows, sometimes soft shell crabs, mostly for flounders and blues.

I hate using the live bait tho :(

Always depends on the situation.
For flounder I love using Mud minnows, Menhaden, and mullets. So live
But for Speckled trout I use soft plastic as we usually find them in a feeding frenzy and being able to cast back out without re-baiting a hook is everything in that situation.

For catfish this week we will use everything from worms, liver, and dip bait for the channel cats, and for the flat head catfish we will use live bluegill.

I use lure a lot because I'm lazy. But live bait works best. I usually go for bass.

I fish for carp, tench and bream

The super-duper is the go-to trout lure in my tackle box. I do a week long backpacking trip every year, and the super-duper has never failed to provide me with a meal or five.

Tomorrow after I finish work, I'll be doing both kinds of fishing which were inquired about in the original post. First I'll fish for sand dabs (small flounder) using small white jigs tipped with bits of squid, then I'll fish for lingcod with live sand dabs :)

I love lingcod season.

worms