What produces the best for you? For all those bottom fish
Slugger, you’ve asked a question that needs to be narrowed up a bit!
Bottom bumping near pilings for sheep I’d use oysters, fiddlers, or a small piece of peeled shrimp. If for example you wanted to target shark it would depend on what species and area. For trout, live shrimp. Reds, if in creeks mud minows or shrimp, in the surf salted mullet fillets. For whiting shrimp or squid.
I guess the most versatile bait would be fresh shrimp, dang near catch anything with it.
Welcome to the site and happy fishing!
Edit: what was said below on offshore. Can’t beat squid. I’d dare say I’ve caught as many as 20 BSB on one piece of big squid leg laced on the hook. We actually had a running bet one day to see who could keep the same bait the longest. That was when you could keep smaller ones…
“If Bruce Jenner can keep his wiener and be called a woman, I can keep my firearms and be considered disarmed.”
Offshore bottom, the best bait is fresh squid. It stays on the hook better than most other baits and most everything down there will eat it. But fresh mullet, pinfish, pogies, or other fresh cut baits work very well also. Most of the time, squid is the easiest thing to start out with.
Olde Man Charters
Agree, squid will catch fish. Best for BSB, B liners, Triggers, Snapper. Pinfish and cigar minnows for grouper but nothing beats live pinfish for me. if I want to catch some really good eating. Sometimes the bite is so aggressive artificials work well and much less mess and work if you are running around taking fish off and baiting hooks for those less experienced folks. Gulp shrimp, artificial crabs, buck tails, hogie eels. Ive even caught BSB on bare hooks unbaited when dropped with a double rig that had some bait on the other hook. Squid is the old fall back though.
Bigger the bait, bigger the fish and in my opinion the current and staying on top the fish is a bigger challenge than which bait to drop down.
Don’t overlook jigging for big fish! Squid will get fish of all sizes while jigging normally gets bigger fish if you use a bigger jig.
Search Beaufort homes for sale here!
www.BeaufortHomesToday.com