[MUSIC]
Alright everybody today we're going to talk about live bait.
Live bait is fun to use, it's easy to use if you learn to use it the correct way.
The importance of having live bait is to keep it alive because it's going to have all the action,
It's going to attract the fish to your line. You don't have to do all the jigging and all that, the live baits can do it for you.
So I'm going to show you different ways of baiting your hook with live bait to keep it alive as long as we can.
Today we're going to show three different types of bait, very very simple baits.
Most bait stores are going to carry these baits.
First it's going to be worms next will be crickets and then last but not least we're gonna have some minnows.
Now these are red worms is a very very common.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to dip them in water real quick just so that we can see the worm itself,
And here's a nice red worm.
Now growing up nobody showed me exactly how to bait these and I thought that fish hated to see a hook.
So what I would do is I simply would take the worm,
And I would thread, I use that word loosely, all the way around the hook so you couldn't see the hook.
Well that's a problem because you're not going to keep your worm alive very long.
So the way that you do is you simply you need to take your worm and put it on the hook one time just like that.
Now if I threw it out there this would not be a very good way of baiting live bait because a fish can come by take that and rip it right off.
So the next thing you need to do is you need to poke it one more time.
And as you can see this is still pretty pretty long piece of the tail there,
So I'm going to do it one more time just like this.
Alright now you notice you can still see my hook though the fish really does not care.
What they care about is all this action that you're going to see underneath the water.
And it's going to attract those fish to your bait. That's all you have to do with a live worm.
Alright that's our friendly worm now let's transition to another familiar bait.
Of course that is our crickets.
Crickets are wonderful bait to use for panfish and even you can catch that largemouth bass with them.
And that's because they show a lot of action in the water.
The only way to show that action is that you keep them alive as long as you can.
A lot of people are scared of crickets they say they're like little roaches, they think that.
You don't have to be concerned with that just wash your hands after you use them or go fishing.
And they say they bite, well they don't bite.
They actually have these little hairs on their legs that might be a little bit uncomfortable, they're not going to hurt you.
To get the crickets out you simply tap them on the ground,
Alright now I'm gonna tap them on the table here and they go all follow the bottom. You just reach your hand and just grab a cricket.
Don't be concerned with the big ones, just grab one, okay.
So let's see if I can grab one real quick. There's a cricket, he's alive.
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you the different parts of a cricket.
And we need to be concerned with these because of how we're going to hook them.
Because again the purpose of using live bait is to keep them alive as long as we can.
Right here is our head which these antennas are attached to.
Right behind the head is what we call a thorax, a lot of people call it a collar ,
Which is very important and lastly behind here this, part the big part is called the abdomen.
If I took my hook right here, this little gold albertine hook, if I stuck it through the head it would die.
If I stuck it through the abdomen it would die. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to hook them right underneath what we call the collar,
And I'm going to demonstrate how it does not affect their action in the water.
So I'm simply going to take my hook and put it right under that collar and come up right behind it, just like that.
If you notice he's still moving around if I let go this hook he's going to hop right off this table.
All this movement is going to attract those panfish right to that guy, they're just going to take it and they're going to run with it,
And it's your job as a hanger to catch them.
That's the simple way of keeping your cricket alive as long as you can.
There's a couple things that this guy will die from, they can drown,
Or a fish might come by but the way that we just hooked that will keep them alive as long as they can.
Alright that's our friendly cricket now let's move on to minnows.
Minnows are great great bait because you are able to put them on in line on your hook and they can stay alive as long as that they can breathe.
And they do breathe underneath the water,
So let's go ahead and show you two different ways that you can bait a minnow that will keep them alive as long as those fish leave them alone.
But we don't want going to do that.
Alright so I'm gonna stick my hand in this minnow bucket right here and grab one of these live minnows.
The first way that I'm gonna demonstrate to hook one of these minnows is simply by taking our hook and putting it right through its mouth, just like that.
This is a wonderful way and a lot of people say well the fish can come by and just take that right off.
Well you got to remember that you're trying to track some large fish like largemouth bass,
And when they see this out in the water flopping around they're just going to go after it and they're very aggressive fish.
They just got to grab it just like this and you're going to catch a large fish with that.
So that is one way that you can use a minnow. The second way is going to you to hook them right behind that dorsal fin.
Now you want to make sure that when you do it this way, that you do not go deep inside their abdomen here, because you will kill them pretty quick like that.
So you see the dorsal fin right here, you simply just take it right there at the backbone, go right underneath it,
And as you can see there's a lot of action still left in there,
And when you have this fish on your hook it's going to simulate a fish that might be hurt,
And it's going to be sending all these strange vibrations,
And there's going to be a large bass that comes by and sees that and think it's an injured fish,
They will pounce on that in a heartbeat and you've caught you a nice-sized fish.
Alright everybody as you can see we've used three simple baits,
We've used our crickets our worms and our minnows,
And remember that the best thing to do is keep them live as long as you can.
Let them do the work and catch those fish and guess what we'll catch you next time.