Perhaps the easiest bait to procure and keep lively is the nightcrawler. (Shutterstock image)
Back in the day (and by that, I mean the early 1970s), gathering bait was part of the fishing experience. Seldom did my father and I visit the bait shop. Instead, we’d drive down to the creek outside my hometown and push a seine for an afternoon, collecting plenty of what the Old Man called "crappie minnows," along with a handful of crayfish, which would be fished on the bottom for channel cats.
Crawlers? Same story, minus the seine. Equipment? A headlamp with the requisite red lens and a Maxwell House coffee can.
"That's two bucks a dozen you're saving, son...