This first one I remember using alot as a boy because they were so easy to hook. In fact, I have even had them hook themselves on a baitless hook. I kid you not.

Bluegills, they have a blueish gill flap with a black lobe. The bluegills and other sunfish, often called bream, are well distributed in North America.

Mottled Sculpins, known to some as mudlers or bullheads, have large pectoral fins and they live in mountain streams of the West and many eastern states and Canada.

Yellow Perch are most commonly found in the northern United States and Canada. They are identified by their yellowish tint and have 6-8 dark bars running top to bottom on their sides.

Rainbow Smelt are iridescent with silvery sides and adipose fin, a pointed snout and long narrow body. They have large teeth. An ocean species, although they have been stocked in many inland lakes in the northern United States and Canada.

Whenever you are buying live fishing bait avoid buying baitfish with damaged fins, reddish snouts or fungus growing on the body. Fungus grows as white cottony patches wherever scales and slime have been rubbed off. This indicates the have been handled too much.

You should also watch out for any with bulging eyes and blackened heads, as this too are signs of disease in most kinds of baitfish. But moving along…

Lets take a few minutes to discuss some other live fishing bait. For instance, did you know there were eight different kinds of common fishing worms?

Probably the most commonly used is the Nightcrawler, big and juicy, how can the fish resist them. But there are some others that may not be so well known to you by name.

We use many of them perhaps without realizing their different names like the Leaf Worm, Garden Worm, Red Wiggler, Gray Nightcrawler, Grunt Worm, and even the African Nightcrawler.

So you see there are numerous worms that we use for our live fishing bait. So with that said I will pause until the next post where I will continue with Live Fishing Bait -Part – 4. Be sure and check it out as I am sure you will enjoy it.

Goldfish, which many say resemble carp because they both have saw-toothed spines on the dorsal and anal fins, but goldfish do not have barbels and are found thoughout the United States.

Golden Shiners have a deep body with gold coloration with a sharp-edged belly behind the pelvic fins and they can grow to over one-foot in length. They prefer the quiet waters where they thrive in the clear lakes with dense stands of aquatic plants. Commonly found in southern Canada and the eastern half of the United States.

Southern Redbelly Dace, or rainbows – as sometimes referred to, have a reddish belly and two dark bands on their sides. Commonly found in the Midwest and South in smaller streams.

Red Shiners are deep-bodied and rarely exceed 3-inches in length. Males have orange fin edges. They are commonly found in large, slow rivers from the Midwest to Mexico.

Common Shiners have a broad body and deep, narrow scales. They are found in streams and lakes from
Saskatchewan to Colorado, east to the Atlantic Coast.

Blacknose Dace have dark blotches on the body and a black line from the eye to the nose. They live in fast-water streams in the eastern half of North America.

Finescale Dace have smaller scales and are less colorful than the redbelly dace. They live in bog, streams and lakes in the Great Lakes region and parts of Canada.

Spottail Shiners are named for a black spot at the base of their tail. They often share waters with the emerald shiners, but do not go as far south.

Emerald Shiners have a slender body, and a large faint band along the side. They live in the lakes and rivers in the eastern two-thirds of North America.

We will pause there for today but come back soon, or register with my RSS feed in the upper right hand corner of this page to see the next portion of live fishing bait called Live Fishing Bait -Part – 3.

So you see there are some restrictions to what live baits you use and where you use them. Some baits are only available in certain areas or during certain times of the year, while others are simply not useful for one kind of catch, but extremely good for another.

We want to discuss things like minnows, and other baitfish, as well as things like crickets, frogs, toads, leeches and worms, crustaceans, salamanders and all sorts of flying insects.

Minnows are used for numerous reasons. Some minnows are chosen for their size, shape, activeness, sex, flash or color, even taste and smell. With so many decisions its a wonder anglers ever have time to get their bait in the water and this is just the decisions regarding the minnows and we still need to figure out our hook. But we will save that for a different topic.

Lets quickly go over minnows so you can identify them and perhaps even learn why some are chosen for one catch, but not the other. We will now identify the most popular thirteen minnows at your local bait shop.

Minnow Identification:

1) Fatheads, sometimes called mud-minnows or tuffies, have a short first ray on the dorsel fin and live in lakes and rivers throughout most of North America.

2) Creek Chubs look similar to the hornyhead chub, but have smaller scales and a dark spot at the front base of their dorsel fin. A very common stream minnow usually found in eastern North America and thrives in gravel bottom streams east of the rockies in the United States and southern Canada.

3) Bluntnose Minnows are more rounded at the nose than the fathead and have a dark band from the tail to eye and they live in the eastern half of the United States.

4) Horneyhead Chubs, also known as redtail chubs, have a lateral band that extends to the tail and they prefer gravelly streams from Wyoming to New York, south to Arkansas.

We will pause there and pick this up in our next post, so be sure and check back for Live Fishing Bait -Part – 2. I would strongly suggest you bookmark the website, or take this opportunity to sign up for my free RSS feed.