Fishing bait works, though nobody fully knows why fish bite
Worms, cheese, boilies, spoons and even robotic fish all end up on hooks. Yet how fish respond to particular baits remains poorly understood. Florida sunfish will grab a ball of bread softened by an angler's saliva, while pike and bass strike plastic lures that move, flash and vibrate like prey.
Anglers distinguish hookbaits, fixed directly to the hook, from groundbaits scattered separately as an appetiser to draw fish near. Natural baits are foods already in a fish's diet, such as insects, crustaceans and small fish, gathered from the same water. Artificial baits require some production, from processed foods like bread, dough and pet food pellets to inedible lures. Chosen well for the species, natural and artificial options tend to work about equally.
Lures rely on sight and sound rather than smell. Popular in North America for vision-driven hunters such as trout, black bass and pike, they come as crankbaits, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits and surface stickbaits, and some need special handling, as in fly fishing. One study linked fish reactions to lure colours with their ability to detect infrared light reflecting off the surface. Groundbaits dominate freshwater coarse fishing, where omnivorous fish may ignore a hook, while offshore anglers toss chum, cut fish and blood, to draw sharks.
Bait brings environmental costs. Live bait such as crayfish can escape and turn invasive, and moving bait fish can carry disease; in 2007 several American states tightened rules to slow viral hemorrhagic septicemia. A 1987 Welsh study found that 12 weeks of cereal or maggot groundbaiting reduced nearly all bottom-dwelling invertebrates, with no clear recovery after four months, and lab tests show one dose of cereal bait can raise oxygen demand a hundredfold.
Portuguese researchers found that with full catch-and-release, groundbait added about four times the nitrogen and three times the phosphorus of unbaited water. Lost lures bring their own harm, snaring water birds and reptiles, and lodging in fish mouths, gullets and gills.
Source: Fishing bait
