I am so committed to catch big panfish! ...

Q: How committed are you?

So committed, I started a worm farm!

Nothing will get a fat cracker to bite better. So, I read some stuff, watched some youtubes, and started a worm bin with 500 red wigglers from an on-line vendor. I still have to buy 'em for a month or two, though, until they survive - and grow.

If this dang wind would lay down, and the cold fronts lay off, I might catch some nice "uns! Trying to break 2 lbs on a bream/bluegill/Redear/whatever in 2023. So far, not so good... but ANY day now...

Hope y'all are having better luck on the big ones.

Awesome! I did the compost worm bin thing for a while. Big rain storm caused mass evacuation one time and I just sort of let it stop. It is pretty fun messing with worms. Good luck and hope you catch many big ones!

Look forward to seeing your success

Good luck with your farm and catching a big gill .
The last live bait I used was a cricket and that had to be about forty years ago .
For me , Catching a big gill is more about where I’m fishing than it is what I’m using for bait .
I have my best luck in small ponds where they are somewhat protected from over harvesting.

here close by ,we have to hit private waters as well for monster bream , the locals either eat em or use em for bait and so it rarely happens that you see real big bream .....but if you hit the big lakes east of DFW where they have room to hide and time to grow there are some big ones for sure ....
a friend used to raise worms in his backyard back when , sure was great to get a big bucket full of worms for free when I needed a few ....luck to ya on raising them , it seemed pretty easy to me ...

Good luck with em Jawja. Like Chaser, I’m not much of a live bait guy. Seems every time I buy bait I wind up becoming the freedom man for one reason or another. The minnow man hates me. Anyone that knows cracker habits will tell ya some time in the conversation that worms are the #1 ticket.

Yeah, some time ago I switched over to artificials, but sometimes will tip with a piece of worm.
Bob

Good luck on your quest.:ThumbsUp

Good luck , saves on money . Been in the meal worm business about 10 years .

I have had good luck using wigglers, but tend to use live grass shrimp the last 4 years..they dont poop and slime you.

It’s hard to outfish the guys with the grass shrimp. I’ve been schooled a couple of times, but turned it the other way once.

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Originally Posted by skeetbum

It’s hard to outfish the guys with the grass shrimp. I’ve been schooled a couple of times, but turned it the other way once.

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Crickets here are the primary big bream bait , but worms run a close second

On my favorite local lakes I have the best luck brim fishing with live or fresh dead grass shrimp. I have used worms, crickets and cut bait. 35 years ago I used to Striper fish the St Johns river just North of Lake George.. What I quickly learned was you better have multiple bait choices..Grass Shrimp, very small shiners, small Croakers, live eels and a chrome 1/4 oz Rattle trap plug.. You never knew what they were in the mood for.. Eels were the best bait most of the time for the bigger stripers..

a person studying bream stomach contents at one spot i hit a few years ago said freshwater shrimp made up a very large portion of the sunfish diet , it was interesting to talk with them as they ketched fish to examine ....

Another vote grass shrimp. Used them a lot when I was young on cane/bamboo poles, fishing a black water cypress swamp (Chick). A place just down the road (Ed Allen's) sold them in small paper bags with a little moist saw dust in the bottom, $.50. Eventually, dad got a shrimp net and we could catch our own buy scraping the base of the cypress trees and knees. Best brim bait I ever put on a hook.