Slab crappies are meat eaters—sure enough minnow munchers. They take artificials well at times, especially jigs—but big crappie will turn their noses at even the best of the best crappie lures.

Like most anglers of my generation, I started my fishing career using live bait. My first catch was a brook trout that gobbled a garden worm on a long-ago first day of trout season. And while my first ...

A hot-button subject in the world of fishing is the use of live bait. I’m talking about minnows, worms, leeches and all of the other critters that fishermen use to try to coax an unwary fish into ...

Live bait isn’t just a technique for beginners. A fluttering minnow or chunk of nightcrawler at the end of the line can be one of the most effective means of fishing at this time of year.

Fathead minnows, leeches and worms are mainstays in bait-shop refrigerators across the country. These old standards have pro­duced stringers of game fish for decades, and they’ll continue to produce ...

Live bait has quietly become one of the most contentious flashpoints in freshwater policy, with animal rights advocates, conservation groups, and the sportfishing industry all trying to define what ...

When you absolutely, positively have to catch a fish, live bait is the only way to go, period. While artificial lures are variously new, improved, or otherwise hyped worldwide, the lowly worm and its ...

Our live bait operations at our local harbors sell anchovies and sardines, but few people understand how the live bait gets there and ultimately into bait tanks aboard our fishing boats. Sportfishing ...