Like most anglers of my generation, I started my fishing career using live bait. My first catch was a brook trout that gobbled a garden worm on a long-ago first day of trout season.

And while my first recollection of catching a bass was a big largemouth that clobbered a topwater lure, most of the bass I caught as a youngster were with minnows, crayfish and even some night crawlers. I always harbored a considerable fascination for artificial lures, even though my youthful angling budget limited the number of them I could acquire. As I got older and had more money to spend on fishing tackle, fishing with artificial lures gradually overtook the amount of time and effort I employed with live bait, and for many years now, I have only fished with live bait on rare occasions.

Let me state, however, that I do not consider live-bait fishing a second-rate method or in any sense unsporting compared to fishing with artificial lures or flies. Quite the contrary. Skill and expertise are just as important for success with live bait as with artificial lures, and a knowledgeable bait fisherman will catch his share of fish in most situations.

My preference for artificials is just that–personal preference. First, I simply find using artificial lures most interesting. I must control almost every aspect of the lure presentation and how to make it look like something a fish wants to strike.

But what deters me most from using live bait now is the time and effort required to catch the bait and then keep it alive and in good condition for a fishing trip. I well remember an aching back from many late nights hunched over with a flashlight in my mouth while catching softshell crayfish or night crawlers. Or sloshing around in a creek for hours with a minnow seine, only to arrive at my fishing spot and take the lid off the bucket to find all those hard-earned minnows belly up and dead.

That lesson prompted me to invest in a small cooler fitted with a battery-powered aerator to keep my minnows healthy. In the summer, regular doses of ice cubes to keep the water cool helped too. And I also learned the hard way not to use ice made from chlorinated tap water to cool the minnows.

When I began working full-time, I had much less time to devote to catching bait but more money to buy some of what I needed at local bait shops, at least in terms of minnows and worms. Crayfish were another matter because they were not readily available in bait shops, and the few that were tended to be prohibitively expensive.

In Pennsylvania, it is not legal to sell any baitfish or other creature that comes from the waters of the state. Bait shops get their minnows from commercial growers in other states. Although crayfish are farmed commercially for food in the southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and others, apparently those folks down south don’t realize some of us Yankees like to feed crayfish (with a hook in them) to smallmouth bass. Of course, crayfish intended for human consumption aren’t that common up here either.

With recent restrictions on the use of crayfish as live bait, it’s not likely that live crayfish will be a commodity in Pennsylvania bait shops in the future. It is essentially illegal to transport live crayfish captured from any water in the state. The regulation in the Pennsylvania Summary of Fishing Handbook states, “For all crayfish species, the head must be immediately removed behind the eyes upon capture unless used as bait in the water from which taken.” This measure was put in place to prevent the introduction of possibly invasive crayfish species into waters where they are not native.

Similar restrictions have long been in effect for certain species of baitfish. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to use as baitfish or possess while fishing goldfish, koi, comets and common carp. It is also interesting, however, that gamefish such as trout can be used as bait if they are legally caught or purchased from a bait shop. Live trout have been a popular bait for striped bass at Raystown Lake. And back in May, an angler caught a new state record flathead catfish from the Susquehanna River using a live rainbow trout for bait.

One of my favorite and effective live-bait traditions was using live shiners for bait for river smallmouths during late spring and early summer. I preferred small to medium shiners up to about 2.5 inches long. Using a size 4- or 6-hook, I would hook the live minnow through the meaty part of its tail. This would cause the shiner to struggle mightily against the impediment, something no smallmouth within sight of it could resist. I fished this rig on light spinning tackle with 4- or 6-pound line with a small split shot about 18 inches above the bait to keep the minnow from swimming too close to the surface. On a good day, it didn’t take long to use up a bucket of shiners with this method.