Reflections: Catching Bait

From minnows and crickets to nightcrawlers, the art of gathering bait shaped our fishing memories.

December 25, 2025 By Jim Mize

Usually it began over dinner. Dad would look across the table and say, “You catch some bait and I’ll take you and your cousin fishing tomorrow.”

Catching bait in my younger years was a skill honed to perfection. Depending on the type of fish we pursued and the season, we could always find bait.

If we were going after crappies, it meant my cousin and I would be seining minnows in a local creek. We had two good creeks for seining, one in walking distance and another we needed a ride to. Our seine rolled out about 5 feet wide and 3 feet deep with sticks on each end. Dressed in cut-off jeans and tee shirts, we would wade in and run the minnows out of a pool toward a bank, scooping them up in the net at the end.

For crappies, we liked to get the smaller minnows and usually only kept a few of the larger ones for bass. The horny heads and larger chubs we tossed back in the creek. On occasion, we would scoop up a crayfish with its claws flared but had learned long ago not to throw it in the minnow bucket where it would sit on the bottom and chop up any minnow it could reach.

Seeing the contents of our seine was like reaching into a grab bag at times. With our wading and poking the bottom, the water became cloudy, so each catch was a surprise. It was not unusual to bring up a water snake that would startle us when it popped up writhing in the net.

After we had a few dozen minnows in the metal bucket, we would tie off the inside liner on a limb and leave it hanging in the stream for the next day, letting the creek provide fresh water to keep the minnows alive. I don’t remember anyone ever bothering one of our minnow buckets.

If we were chasing bluegills, then our pursuit of bait was on land. During the summer we could catch crickets by placing squares of cardboard in the grass and wetting them with a hose. The next morning while it was still cool we simply lifted the cardboard and started grabbing crickets. While damp, they were easy to catch. We put them in jars with holes punched in the lids for air and added a damp paper towel with a few weeds for the crickets to climb. We could store them for a day or two while we gathered enough for the trip.

Grasshoppers were another good bait, depending on the type you could catch. The big, yellow-bellied hoppers couldn’t jump well, and in a field of weeds we would stir them up and catch them when they landed. Awkward, it was as if they were too heavy and couldn’t stay under control when they jumped. Once grabbed, they would spit what we called tobacco juice as if the insult might cause you to let go. It never worked though.

These yellow grasshoppers were too large for most bluegills. The smaller fish just ate the tail and body, leaving a head and legs on your hook. Mostly, we used them to catch larger fish.

I remember one trip where my younger brother decided to troll with one of these big hoppers. It was midsummer and the trout we were trolling for had already gone deep. My brother’s hopper trailed the boat just beneath the surface, leaving a wake. After I told him repeatedly that he was wasting his time, his rod bowed and he landed a nice rainbow. His grin said more than words possibly could.

Smaller hoppers were better bait but harder to catch. Some could fly long distances and if you didn’t grab them before they took off you might spend all your time running through the field. We rarely had nets with us and used our caps to catch these insects in the air. Frustrated by their flying skills, we probably caught as many throwing our hats at them when they landed.

We also caught several types of worms and each one required a different technique.

Using flashlights, preferably dim ones, we would try not to shine directly at the nightcrawler. Then we would ease up and grab the exposed end of the worm. When it was far out of its hole, it usually could be pulled the rest of the way out easily. If not, then you sometimes had to hold on until it relaxed in your hand and take it a step at a time.

By the time we quit, we were usually soaked and muddy. In my younger days, that was not an unusual state while chasing bait.

On a good night, we could catch dozens of nightcrawlers. Once at home, we filled a washtub with dirt and leaves to store them in our cool basement for the summer. Normally, just one or two trips to the field would provide enough worms for the season. We would feed them coffee grounds or cornmeal, but looking back I’m not sure they needed more than the leaf mulch and dirt in the tub.

Our favorite worm for catching trout at night was something we called an angle worm. If you touched it in the middle, it started jumping and squirming. They broke easily and were full of a juice we suspected was an attractant to fish. Once on a hook, these worms were lively in the water and trout loved them.

We found these angle worms in the damp leaves along the river. Using sticks to rake through the leaf piles, we could uncover enough worms for a trip in about 30 minutes. The sections of the river where these worms lived were prized hunting grounds and once found were secrets guarded as surely as a prime fishing hole.

Red wigglers were another bait we used for bluegill and we could find these during all but the coldest months. In those days, paper trash and food scraps were burned in a barrel in our garden and the remains turned into a fine compost for worms. The bottom had long ago burned out of the barrel so the ashes fell to the ground.

Sifting through these remains, we could find wigglers in abundance. These were our preferred baits when bluegills were on their beds or we wanted to troll the banks with baited spinners for a mixed bag.

Looking back, our effort to provide our own bait was simply an extension to our fishing trip. Like tying our own flies or making our own lures, catching bait provided a sense of accomplishment and rounded out the trip.

An exercise in pursuit of bait was just the first step on our trip the same as frying and eating fish afterwards was the last. When a snake surfaced in our seine, the tale made its way into the dinner conversation as well as the stories of our catch or the bragging over who caught the most fish. The whole of the experience began with bait and ended with dinner. Somewhere in between we caught fish.

Perhaps that is what makes fishing a sport that so enriches our lives. We find related activities before and after the trip that allow us to enjoy more than just our time on the water. And the anticipation generated while catching bait makes the trip itself a good bit better.

In his younger years, Jim Mize spent countless hours flipping rocks in creeks or scratching through leaf piles in search of bait. You can find his award-winning books of humor and nostalgia on Amazon or purchase autographed copies at acreektricklesthroughit.com.