Bait

(1) In the most strict, narrow, and accurate sense as used by anglers, the term bait refers to any natural or processed food that is used to catch fish; this is distinguished from a lure, which, through popular usage, has come to mean any man-made object that represents or imitates food.

Natural bait (see) is any live or dead organism that occurs in nature; examples include worms, crickets, assorted fish, shrimp, eels, leeches, frogs, fish eggs, squid, crabs, and clams. A review of this occurs separately.

Processed bait is food that does not occur naturally in aquatic environments; examples include bread, dough, cheese, cubed meat, seeds, and vegetables. Processed bait is often used when angling for coarse fish (see), and in association with chumming (see), and is reviewed in more detail in those entries and elsewhere (see: float).

Generally, food that is normally eaten by a particular fish is preferred by anglers as hooked bait for that fish, but on some occasions natural bait may include organisms that are rarely part of the diet of fish. A field mouse or a lemming, for example, is not an everyday food item for predatory freshwater fish, but these do occasionally occur in the water and are consumed by some species. These would represent an uncommon natural bait and one that, when in the water, attracts fish because of its movement. In a much different vein, a piece of chicken liver, which falls under the category of processed baits, is often an effective bait for catfish, which are attracted to it through their senses of smell and touch.

(2) In a broad sense, the term “bait” is used with reference to any object—natural, processed, and artificial—that is used to catch fish. In a confusing twist of language, the application of the word “bait” to lures (which in essence are “artificial baits”) is primarily a U.S. phenomenon, where many types of lures are widely used in freshwater. Thus, the terms crankbait, spinnerbait, jerkbait, and so forth have become standards for very specific types of lures, and many anglers (especially those who fish for bass) refer to a lure as a “bait” even though it is strictly artificial. Lures (see) are reviewed elsewhere.