Why learn how to catch crawfish? Well, whether you call them crawdads, crayfish, or mudbugs, crawfish are one of the most lethal live bait you can put on a fishing hook. Any decent smallmouth angler ...

As live bait goes, it’s hard to beat crawfish for trout, bass, catfish, and more—yet they are wildly underused. That’s because it’s rare to find them for sale in bait shops. There are no commercial ...

Clockwise, from top left: minnow, crayfish, sunfish, shad, frog, and grasshopper. Fathead minnows, leeches and worms are mainstays in bait-shop refrigerators across the country. These old standards ...

Fathead minnows, leeches and worms are mainstays in bait-shop refrigerators across the country. These old standards have pro­duced stringers of game fish for decades, and they’ll continue to produce ...