Sarley: The ins and outs of using live bait in fishing

What do I like to eat when I am going fishing, you ask? I usually pack a brown paper sack with a salami sandwich on white bread, a bag of chips, a stick or two of jerky and a bottle of Snapple.

Uh oh. You are not asking what I am going to be eating, you want to know what the fish want to eat. I get it.

I’ll discuss live bait with you right now. I use a lot of artificial baits and I will never be able to explain why those tiny pieces of wood or plastic look like something that a fish would like to eat. Explain to me exactly why a bass or walleye would ever desire to chomp down on something that looks like a spinnerbait. I don’t get it.

I do understand why fish go after live bait. It’s a no-brainer. The main reason that fishermen shy away from using live bait is because the pros that we watch on TV are not allowed to use live bait in tournaments. Brands of live bait is not something that the pros can have all over their fancy shirts or painted on the sides of their bass rigs. Lure manufacturers spend millions getting their brands out to the public.

The other reasons for staying away from live bait are the expense of purchasing it and also storing it properly. My buddy, Spence Petros, always said that he didn’t use live bait because it made catching fish too easy for him.

Too easy? Sign me up for that program.

Worms are the most commonly used live bait. Every bait shop sells nightcrawlers. You can save money by picking up your own crawlers when they come up after a rainfall. Driveways are covered with juicy crawlers after a rain.

Redworms are tiny versions of crawlers. You can put a whole crawler on a hook or just a piece of one. Redworms are applied to a hook whole. Panfish go crazy over redworms and sometimes crawlers are just too big for fish like bluegills to eat.

Waxworms are the larvae of a type of moth. You need to use them whole. They are very soft and fall apart if you don’t hook them gently. Some people like to squish them between their fingers and serve up a gooey mess to the fish.

Spikes aren’t really worms. They are larvae of flies. These are maggots that are primarily sold in the winter and are great for ice fishing. Wigglers are a type of worm that are smaller than crawlers and are very lively. They are often hard to find so I rarely use them.

Worms might be the most popular live bait, but I find leeches to be the most effective bait. I have never seen a smallmouth bass sitting on its bed that could resist the temptation of a wiggly leech swimming past it. Bedding bass will not eat anything else, but they can’t resist a leech.

If you look at the bottom of a leech, you will see a sucker on one end. That is the head end of the leech. Impale the leech directly through the sucker, and that is it. It will swim in a very lively manner. Leeches for fishing are black or dark brown in color. Ribbon leeches are what fishing leeches are usually called. These leeches are not blood suckers. They use the sucker to hold on to things, not to feed. Don’t be afraid to handle leeches.

Crawlers should be kept in a cool place. Do tell the other people in your family that you are storing worms. That would be a nasty surprise for them to find.

Keep redworms cool also. Waxworms can be stored at room temperature, but don’t let them get too hot. Leeches need to be kept cool. The water must be changed very often to keep the leeches heathy,

Next week, we can talk about minnows.

• Daily Herald Outdoors columnist Steve Sarley can be reached at sarfishing@yahoo.com.