rasing your own baite

was wondering how many of you raise your own baite for fishing? when my grandad was alive he use to raise millie and red wiggler worms for bream fishing. but i have never had any luck in using worms for fishing its all ways been crickets for me.

I raise crickets, and red worms, and I am attempting to raise minnows , we will see how that works, I do ok with worms, but better with crickets and minnows, and meal worms

I raise mealworms because they are very easy and need little attention except for a piece of potato weekly or so. I use chicken mash but wheat bran is very good also . be patient as it takes about 3 months to reproduce. i start with 50 and by 3 months I have too many to use so I give them to kids.

I raise minnows in a couple small ponds I have.
I started raising "European Nightcrawlers" last spring. While they're called nightcrawlers, they don't need refrigeration. They're basically oversized redworms, and make excellent bait. I started with one bed made out of an old styrofoam cooler, and have since divided them into 4 beds. I saw those Rubbermaid storage containers on one of the worm sites and started using those. The 4th bed I just started today. After further research, I discovered that they don't reproduce as many offspring as often as redworms. I was hoping I could get enough of them going to last me though the spring. We'll see.

les, I started raising those euro crawlers too, a few months ago with the direction of illinoisgiller. they are doing good. bought two heavy duty plastic bins from home depot. they are 20x30x14 tall, and rated for 700 lbs. capacity. they are perfect. feeding them chicken mash crumbles. someone told me to be careful what mash I was feeding them cuz some of them have wormer mixed in. havent used these worms yet but have been assured by others that bream and crackers likem.

never heard off the mash having a wormer added in ?? I hope my last bag didn't

rich, a lady told me that a couple days ago, and she works in the place where I buy the mash. I just took her word for it, shes got her own horses and chickens etc.

I am thinking chick starter mash has something in it for cocci...but I don't think its a wormer.

I have a very large compost pile from lawn trimmings. It serves me well for red worms. Right now I have 50 bluegill in barrels and i have enough worms to feed them every day and still have bait. Im the opposits when i comes to crickets. Ive never had luck with them, also when using them as soon as them hit the water they never move again and drown, I always have luck with the worms.

hey kikkup, how did you get started raising the crickets?

I raise meal worms and crickets. The mealies are easy I just use oat meal, and don't clean the container. I have enough to feed all the reptiles I keep and have plenty to fish with. The same with the crickets but I add some aspen shavings to the tank. They seem to do better for me that way.