What is the best bait for fishing?  There is only two "best baits" for fishing, “PATIENCE” and the “one that catches the fish!”  There are two types of bait, Artificial, and Live or Natural baits. When learning to fish with bait, every fisherman you ask will have a different favourite bait. Some of the most popular baits while learning to fish with bait are found last minute or by accident. However, there are only a few that do produce over and over.  At the end of the day the best, bait, lure or person who uses them, and catches fish, then, that’s probably the best bait for fishing when learning to fish with bait.

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Artificial Bait:

These are man made baits and can be the lure or hook itself that is produced or made to imitate the real thing. If you look at Shad Rap, Husky Jerk Minnow, and the many Jointed Minnow hard baits or the Mimic Minnow Shad, Swim’n Grubs, Slurpies Minnow and the many Gulp! Minnow, Powerbait Finesse Worms, 5” Jumbo Leech, Alive Leech or Jumbo Leech, Pork Spin Frog, and Chigger Craws the thing they all have in common is they look like the real thing. Then there are the attractants such as PowerBait Attractant

Live Bait:
These are the real thing, the true living being but there are issues with all live bait and that is (Make sure you can use live bait and what type of live bait) where you will be fishing. Saskatchewan does not allow live minnows, has import restrictions on leeches and worms and some native species such as frogs and salamanders are protected. More issues arise when trying to keep live bait alive and finding a source or supply of bait.

Minnows – RULE ONE of fishing – Fish eat fish! The good hooks and lures all strive to imitate this food source. Why not just use the real thing Minnows.  Minnows have long been known as the greatest bait for fishing, and when it comes to walleye fishing, minnows are incredible bait. The downside of minnows is not all provinces, states or countries allow the use of live minnows and if they are allowed then keeping them alive is a problem. You will find only a few bait shop dealers who will keep shiner minnows during the summer months because they die quickly in the dealers tanks and in the fishermen’s minnow buckets.Two ways to overcome this are: 1) use commercially frozen minnows or 2) many anglers say that the Berkley Gulp minnows are as good as live minnows. Minnows are used for tipping jigs, best fished vertical, bottom fishing or fishing under a bobber.

Worms – Earthworm or Dew Worm are one of the most popular and readily available baits in spring, summer and fall but in northern climates when lakes and ground freezes they are hard to come by. They could very well be the most effective in summer when trolled using a harness or on a rig of gang hooks.  The worm spread out over a series of hooks enables the worm be presented in a natural manner. The biggest problem with worms, are short bites as worms stretch out really long when dead and keeping them alive in the hottest part of the day. In winter you can use meal worms but are hard to find in summer. Meal worms are used to tip jigs, straight J hook or small spoons.

Leeches – Leeches are a great bait for walleye. Ribbon leaches are an excellent bait because because they swim, and squirm constantly after they are placed on the hook when the temperature is above 50deg, but are poor choice below this. Used in the same time frame as worms but there are three big issues with leaches: availability, keeping alive and transportation. Leeches are hard to find most times of the year, they need constant fresh water to live and transporting into some areas is restricted. Leeches used on crawlers and harnesses in summer are very effective but the work to find and keep them may not be worth it.  Gulp does put out a great leech bait and you can buy artificial lures that look just like leeches.

The above 3 are the most used and probably the most successful of live baits to use but here are some other baits – beef heart, fish belly, fish eyes, fish eggs, insects, marsh mellow, corn, cheese balls, maggots and gummy bears.

Yes the gooey gummy bear in multi colors. One time out fishing for walleye we found a real nice spot with lots of perch chasing, following, stealing and being pains in the (&^%$*). We had a young child with us and he was eating gummy bears and accidently dropped one in the water, in seconds there was a school of hundreds mouthing then spitting it out and another taking then spitting it out constantly. We put a gummy bear on a straight J hook and caught fish after fish, what a thing to see. On this day the best bait was the gummy bear.

There have been many fishing surveys published that show fishing for walleye with live bait accounts for over 2/3ds of all walleye that are caught, and is still the preferred choice over artificial lures especially when walleye fishing gets slow.  If you can use live bait, make sure the live bait you choose to fish for walleye, is active and lively. When learning to fish with bait and walleye are agressive or feeding you can get by with a half dead minnow or chewed-up night crawler, but a fresh struggling leech or squirming worm will catch more, bigger or trophy walleye quicker.

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