Keeping bait alive

Care pages for the baits that are genuinely kept alive: what conditions hold them, what going wrong looks like before it has gone wrong, and what an angler owes the water the bait came from.

• How to keep casters alive

  A caster is a maggot that has pupated, and its value depends entirely on being caught at the right point in that process. A fresh caster is dense, dark red-brown and SINKS, which is what makes it fish as a bottom bait and as loose feed that stays where it is put.

• How to keep maggots alive

  A live maggot moves, and movement is most of what it offers. A dead maggot is a small pale object of the right size and none of the behaviour, and fish that are feeding confidently often ignore it.

• How to keep lobworms and worms alive

  A lobworm's whole value is that it writhes. It is a large, high-scent, high-movement bait and a dead one is a limp brown object that has lost most of what made it attractive.

• How to keep ragworm alive

  Ragworm are bought and dug for movement and scent, and both fade fast once they die. A live ragworm on a hook works in a way a dead one does not, and a bunch that has been allowed to go off will break up on the cast rather than staying on it.

• How to keep lugworm alive

  Lugworm are a soft-bodied bait whose value is scent and mass rather than movement, and their condition determines whether they stay on the hook at all. A fresh lugworm holds together well enough to cast; a deteriorating one bursts and slides off.

• How to keep peeler crab alive

  Peeler crab is prized for a narrow window in the animal's moult cycle, when the old shell is about to come away and the flesh beneath is soft and highly attractive. Keeping peelers alive is really about keeping them AT that stage — a crab that completes its moult in the bait box has become a softback, and one that dies has lost most of its value within hours..

• How to keep sand eel alive

  A live sand eel swims, and for bass, pollack and many other predators that swimming action is the entire attraction. Sand eels are also delicate — they die quickly from handling, from warm water and from crowding — so the difference between a livebait and a deadbait is often decided in the first few minutes after they are caught..

• How to keep prawns and shrimp alive

  Live prawns and shrimps flick and dart, and that movement is what triggers a take from bass, pollack, wrasse and a long list of warm-water species. Dead ones still work on scent, but they are a different bait used in a different way.

• How to keep crab and shellfish alive

  Crabs and shellfish used as bait span a wide range of conditions — hardback crabs kept alive for wrasse and smoothhound, shellfish opened fresh for their scent. Where the animal is used alive, keeping it in good condition is what preserves both the scent and the texture that keeps it on the hook..