My favorite bait is crappie heads. I save all I dress for blue cats. They love them. I have also had good luck with the large shrimp. Has to be the big ones. I have caught up to 20 or so lbs on the shrimp and much larger on the crappie heads. Many use chicken marinated in garlic, but I never did that great with it. I usually have a bag of heads, a bag of shrimp and try to catch a few perch (whole for flatties and cut up for blues) for a little variety.