Favourite baits, live perch/roach, drift netted herring (outfishes trawled herring by a mile), whiting, hake, trout, for the big stuff nothing beats a one and a half pound mackerel. I sorry to burst Dr. Rickards bubble but the fish which he is buying at a Cambridge market is a minimum of eight days old (more likely 14days old, admittedly iced since capture), even if it comes directly from any of the ports on the east or south coast. The only way to get truly fresh bait is to visit one of the smaller fishing ports and get fish off a daily prawn boat (the larger pelagic fleet is where your fish maket fish come from and can sail for many days between landings, and then may even hold fish weeks prior to market depending on prices), these are a great source of bait size whiting, herring, spratts, hake and smelt, which would be dumped anyway.