It’s trap time on the Indian River.

Water temperatures are well into the 70s now, signaling that my efforts to catch my own bait rather than purchase it from the local bait and tackle store, should be fruitful. During the winter I use a lot of live shrimp for bait. But the Indian River doesn’t have the concentrations of shrimp that make it practical to catch my own. That’s why I make a weekly run to Professional Outfitters, one of my favorite tackle shops, to pick up four dozen live shrimp.

But now the little pigfish and pinfish that hatched a couple of months ago are getting big enough to be useful bait for trout, redfish and snook, my three favorite targets in the Indian River. You can catch these little morsels on hook (a really small hook) and line, but that’s a tedious process.

It’s far easier to invest in some cheap fish traps constructed of hardware cloth and sold at most local tackle shops for less than $20. Find a likely looking spot—preferably a patch of sand in water two to four feet and surrounded by thick weed beds, then bait the trap with a chunk of squid or, even better, a smashed crab carcass and leave it alone on the bottom for 12 hours. Come back and, if your placement was right, you’ll have anywhere from a dozen to three dozen wriggling, squirming baits that a prime food source for bigger inshore predators. 

The pinfish are the hardiest of the two, able to withstand multiple casts before finally succumbing if nothing has eaten them (not likely!). But pigfish are the better bait. They don’t last long on a hook, but while they’re alive they make the most enticing grunting noise (enticing to trout and snook, not to me) that gives them their name.  

If I have to, I’ll bait my fish traps with commercially available squid. But I prefer to set out my own crab traps using trash fish for bait and use the crabs I catch as bait for more bait fish. I suppose if I pushed this to the extreme I’d be building my own crab and fish traps, but I’m not that far gone yet.