Make Your Own Fish Bait With Common Household Ingredients

If you would like to increase the chance of catching more fish in your next excursion, you might want to consider making your own fish bait. Why? If you look at the store bought baits, there are only a few brands. Imagine going to your favorite fishing hole and the majority of the baits cast into the water are from the same company.

The fish won't have much of a choice but being attracted to the same store bought bait. Now imagine if you brought along fish bait that you made yourself. Your bait will stick out like a sore thumb from the other baits and the fish will seek you out.

Making your own fish bait is not only easy, it is fun and cheap. You can make the bait with your children and share the fun the next day catching fish knowing that you made the bait yourself. You can make pounds of bait for literally pennies and keep the unused portion in the freezer for months.


There is going to be some experimentation on your part. However, I have included the more popular ingredients and descriptions found in homemade baits. When you are making your bait, make sure to write everything down because if you fill your stringer full of fish, you want to be able to duplicate the winning formula.

Most of the following ingredients can be found at a well stocked grocer and feel free to experiment with other ingredients not listed below. Also, these ingredients are commonly found in trout baits so I would like to advise you that you will probably have more success utilizing these ingredients for catching trout.

Also, this list is not the end all be all of ingredients. Feel free to add your own ingredients. Who knows, you may find an ingredient that no one has even considered.

1) Uncooked oatmeal – popular as a base (keeps all the ingredients together in a doughy mixture)

2) White bread – also popular as a base

3) Water – required in most cases to help make the mixture workable

4) Garlic salt – found in most store bought baits (probably a good idea if you used it also)

5) Garlic powder – similar to salt but may alter the fish attractant properties

6) Mini marshmallows – also found in store bought baits (helpful for flotation purposes)

7) Can of tuna – found in many homemade bait recipes. Maybe the old timers know something.

8) Anise oil extract – almost a requirement for trout bait

9) Red food coloring – it seems color attracts along with smell and taste

10) Yellow food coloring – same

11) Cheese – I've seen recipes with American and especially Velveeta cheese

12) Ziploc bags – great for mixing your ingredients, storage, and taking to fishing hole.

I hope this information gives you a great head start in developing your own homemade secret fish bait. Just remember to have fun.