Three Recipes to Make Dough Bait

In these days of cutting costs, many an angler has turned to the tried and true recipes of yore: Homemade bait. The great advantage to the recipes below is that you won't only save money; you may even catch more fish.

Simple Dough Balls

This recipe has the added advantage of using up left-overs to good effect

Ingredients
Day-old white bread, about 1 slice per 2 finished balls
Juice from canned fish, tuna, salmon, etc.

Instructions
Roll the bread between your hands to compress it into dough.

Pull dough apart and continue to roll to create one inch diameter balls
Place dough balls in zip-loc bag and add 1 cup of juice for every 6 balls

Allow dough balls to soak up juice

Refrigerate until needed

Let the dough balls come to temperature before using. The smell in the water of the canned juice will have the fish biting in no time.

From Scratch Dough Balls
For those of you who like to make everything from original ingredients

Ingredients
Wheat flour, 1 cup
Corn meal, 1 cup
Water, 1 cup
Vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon

Instructions
Put the flour and corn meal into a bowl and mix thoroughly
Boil water in a pot and add vanilla extract
As the water begins to boil add the flour mixture, stir to absorb the water then remove from heat. Knead the mixture until dough begins to thicken. Continue kneading until dough is firm. Roll into 1 inch diameter balls. Allow to cool and refrigerate in a zip-loc bag

The vanilla extract is a powerful attractor for catfish and carp.

Cheesy Dough Balls
For those of you who might like to serve up something a little fancy on your hook

Ingredients
1 pre-made package pie pastry dough, 10 oz
Blue cheese, crumbled, 4 oz
Cheddar cheese, grated, 6 oz

Instructions
Roll out the pasty dough with a rolling pin until thin and smooth
Spread the cheeses mixed together over half the rolled out dough
Fold the dough over to cover the cheese
Roll the dough flat and repeat folding and rolling until cheese is thoroughly mixed with pastry dough
Knead dough and break apart into smaller pieces
Roll each piece into a 1 inch diameter ball
Place in zip-loc bag and refrigerate until needed

It's amazing how much fish like the smell of cheese

General Notes
Depending on the consistency of the dough balls you make, you may find your dough baits get eaten away by smaller fish. Boiling the dough balls can help reduce the damage, by making them tougher, but there are some disadvantages to actually boiling, or steaming your dough balls since you may reduce the attractiveness of the bait.

If you do not need your bait to be perfectly round, you can instead roll the dough into long sausage shapes, about 1 inch thick. Cut this into 1/2 inch slices to create a number of disc shaped baits. These work just as well on the hook as balls. Though round boiled dough balls can be fired by slingshot into the water to pre-bait an area with considerable accuracy.