River Fishing Bait

Hello, this is Dwight Norris of fishingatwork.com here for another in-home video. Now today I'm going to be talking about river fishing bait. Since I fish on the river, I should learn and know more about what kind of baits I can use at this river, and any other river that I may go to, or you may be going to as well.

What Is River Fishing?

So, one of the first questions I can think some people might think that aren't fishermen is a what is river fishing? Let's keep this simple. Remember river fishing is fishing in a river. Fishing a river is different than fishing on a lake and fishing on a man-made lake and fishing in a swamp or a bog or a kettel pond or anything else.

It is a body of water. It may be moving or not moving. These small changes actually matter. Now, I will be going into those kind of things in this video. This video is about river fishing bait.

What Is The Best Bait To Fish With?

So let's get to the first question, which is what is the best fishing bait in the Charles river? That would be my first question here. Worms! The age old favorite, get those 1950s pictures, you will see them with the bobbers and the gigantic worms. Everybody's fishing. everybody's catching fish.

They haven't learned they're not knowledgeable. They're used to catching fish easy. You can say that they're still easy to catch today. I think we all know that they actually learn over time. I'm not sure that they learn over generations, but really old ones like the big lunkers their smart. 

The Fish Are Getting Smarter!

I had a previous video, which I went through all of the body parts of a large mouth bass. Particularly, how they continue to grow over time. all the sensory organs grow. They're better at doing everything. they get not just wise, they actually understand what's going on. They see better, they hear better, they feel better. ​

They're smarter about eating to like, go up there and jump at the school of shad, whatever, like a crazy man and hit every top water lure they see. I'm going to sit down here below like a shark and wait for the good, juicy ones that fall right into my mouth. That's what's going to happen when all that craziness happens.

European Nightcrawlers

So you know they are wise as well. So this is the best day. Now there aren't different types of nightcrawlers. Well, there's ​nightcrawler worms from different areas of European and such. You also have like red worms, which are sometimes used for composting, but there's still worms, they still work even though there smaller.
I have some of those, and I have some nightcrawlers.

Bloodworms

Lob Worms, Pale Worms, Green Worms and Striped Worms

Now I did a little research to my son likes looking at animals and stuff. We found out we have at least four different types of a worm in our yard here in Massachusetts. Lob worms, a pale worm, a green worm, and
it's kind of striped worm, but they're all different.

Some were big, some had paddle tails. I was a little weirded out. I was like, WOW, I thought that was just an earthworm, but the world's a bigger place than I thought it was. Once it hits the water, fish don't care. It's a worm. So that is the best bait to fish with on a river.

Live Minnows and Golden Shiners

So let's go over a couple more before I go into anything else. Live minnows, I started this because it's one of the things that they actually sell and have at tackle shops. In the area, there are several bait shops to go too. The closest I think for people that live in like the Boston suburbs is the Arlington bait shop in Arlington, Massachusetts. They do they're pretty good.

Places like that you can get yourself some minnows. You want to stick to whatever your local forage is. Your local bait fish might be a minnow or a golden shiner. We actually have those up here.

Hey, if you have fished the upper Charles River anywhere past Waltham and up all the way to where it goes I-495 comment down below. If you have caught any smallmouth bass on the Charles River between that stretch, please tell me! comment down below. While you're down there, click the subscribe button please.

I really want to know where the smallmouth bass are because I really want to catch them, and then talk about them because I have never thought one before. I used to live near a place that used to have them, but couldn't catch them. I was just not good enough. Now it's game on!

As I say if minnows there are several types, figure out what's local to your river wherever you are.At your local tackle store you can get them. You need the bucket with the aerator. I would invest in a bucket.

Live Shad

Live shad, which is another big baitfish and this is all across United States. I think the more southern states have higher amounts. I have videos in Boston showing huge gizzard shad that aren't supposed to be here. When it gets really cold they croak. The unfortunate part is we don't have 20 pound bass to eat those things because they're huge. ​

For the most part, they don't usually grow that much because they don't live that long. They're constantly getting eaten up here. Is that happening? That's why they came even though it's super cold.

Herring

Now here in Massachusetts on a Charles River, you're not allowed to harvest blueback herring. I'm not totally sure exactly what that means. You can't try to catch them using drop nets that you throw out, which is really hard thing to learn. If you do want to catch your own bait. It's more of a saltwater thing. if you do learn the proper technique good for you.

I tried when I was younger in high school for free many months. The best I got was a 75% coverage area it was always one or two weights that couldn't get the complete circle. But anyway.

They travel from down south up the coastline. Right now they're hitting the Charles River and striped bass and probably blues as well are following them. It's raining here a lot. I didn't go fishing today. So I wanted to make this video. I'm going to go out there again.

Always look for Striped Bass In Rivers

I will keep going out there until somebody tells me "Yo dude, I saw striper in Boston Harbor" or "I saw striper in the Charles River". If you see any splashing please tell me! Now the last time I went there all the birds, the seagulls and the cormorants were just sitting there, kind of waiting. Once they start attacking stuff
you can rest assured that there may be a struggle.

I'm going to use my plugs. I'm gonna go out there and put in the work and maybe we'll get lucky. if I catch a keeper and then I'll have to go through the weird thing of trying to figure out how to get it home without stinking up my office place.

I said I would make a new system to do that. I haven't actually come up with it. I have it in my head. And I've seen it online something similar but I haven't actually created the thing. It's basically a giant plastic bag
wtih some form of holder that's waterproof that can hold ice as well. it's insulated and it's sealed and it looks like you might stick your fishing rod in it and if you're traveling.

If you don't want to be that prepared get a cooler or big trash bag (HEFTY). Hopefully it's waterproof and add a little ice on there to keep it cool so it doesn't go bad or something. you can take it home when you're done or if you're bold put it in their fridge and hope it doesn't stink up the whole thing. I really want to do that, but I'm not because I don't want to be that person. If it's cool with you ​go ahead.

Crayfish

The best thing particularly for bass is crayfish. they will go after the crayfish 90% of the time even if all the other types of live bait are available. Why? it's the most nutritious and it has everything it needs. they bite off the claws first. They don't want to get hurt themselves. after that they are defenseless and they suck it up.

They like the delicacies of a lobster as well as New Englanders.  They're like little lobsters. its tail. This pow pow like pop them. like popcorn chicken.

Shrimp

Okay, now shrimp is something that I didn't think about because I don't live in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, you can use shrimp anywhere. I haven't really studied it to see where it exists. I always thought shrimp are in the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean. I think they're everywhere. They're just about everywhere.

They were down in Jupiter, Florida when I had the shrimp on the wrong size hook. a guy gave me those one size too big. I switched to a smaller hook and then caught every single bite after that. I was like, ARE YOU KIDDING ME! One size difference on a hook, I go from not catching crap to catching every single bite. I feel
that just goes to show you little changes when you're fishing make a difference. Especially when you don't know what you're doing! You're taking someone else's advice.

What Is The Best Bait For Trout In Rivers?

That questions came up a lot. Guess what? Salmon eggs, that's a big thing. We all know fly fishermen are all good. So you're talking about nymph flies, the new ones or even ones are still growing. People try to copy those with the flies, and make replicas of one's in their local area like the caddysmith. I believe. I'm not a fly fisherman. So I've seen things like salmon eggs.

I Need To Learn How To Be A Fly Fishermen

I've worked with some companies that do that kind of stuff, or make actual tools that they can use to make the fly fishing flies. So if you're a fly fisherman, please comment down below and school me on what it is to be a fly fisherman because I want to try.

I said I was going to try to share, gotta buy the rod, but I also buy a boat. there's plenty of things to buy. I still take time to have to be patient. I want to learn and then I want to educate. Maybe I'll help somebody out. Like myself.

Siberian shrimps and these keywords are weird. Apparently there are some Siberian salmon, salmon eggs that they like to eat.

Does Fake Bait Work?

Does fake bait work?... when I saw this question, I was wondering what do you mean fake? fake? Oh, the word. I mean, what the hell is fake bait? Could they mean bait that is made to look
like a real bait. So like imitation crab that you can buy? Imitation crab meat that you buy at the store is made to look like it but it's actually fish. What you have a real crab No, no, it's 100% different.

The problem is when you hook it, it's not like a tough thing. It kind of falls off. And I don't really like it. It's it's not good. I do remember watching a video of a guy who had like six rods out. he had to hit three of these the fake forms that he had real where's the land them up? One real one fake one real one fake did experiment for like hours.

When he finished, it was an overwhelming win. For the real thing. I'm talking like 90% of the time. They were for the real world, which means they're right next to each other. They know what's real. They know what's not real. We keep trying to fake them out. then obviously, like spend more money than we would have just getting the real thing but are we trying to trick ourselves and I think you were losing using a lure.

Get a plastic worm, and learn to do your presentations and all the other techniques and environmental things you think about in practice, practice practice. That's how you get better at tricking the fish because they're constantly getting smarter. So you have to get smarter as well and more skilled.

There are plenty of carp fishermen on the Charles River, and I see a carp pretty much every time I go out there. They're sitting under those lily pads. Like almost not moving. Half the time they're silver, or there are gold. Which looks pretty cool. it looks like maybe one of those carp ponds where I see all the carp like floating around somebody's yard.

If you look at the still graphics here, you'll see what is the most popular thing on Google?
Corn, corn, corn, corn, and vanilla... If you know anything about vanilla and carp and catfish tell me. Probably there's a guy with a carp and catfish YouTube channel that lives out of Virginia which is very close to where I grew up. Maybe he knows more about this since he's a carp guy.

Wow, I guess this is all I wanted to say about river fishing bait and the types you could use. if you know of any more river fishing baits that I've forgotten about that lowers and that fake baits like things that are
alive or at least are predominantly eaten by a fish in the river. Yes, catfish will eat like chicken livers and gizzards and pretty much anything that's rotten and smells and stinks I don't know before gone to the old
grocery store. ​

That's it. So get out there and get fishing.