What Do Sea Fish Eat

The Answer:- Whatever happens to be available at the time

Top Tip is :- Try to imagine what natural baits are available then try to match them on your hook.

Most fish are well equipped to find a meal- keen senses of smell and sight and vibration involved to a lesser degree. They know what to look for, including seasonal foods, those dished up through rough weather and opportunist meals. Bait preferences do vary and depend on the region and the depth of water. Where fish are plentiful and competing for food they eat first and taste later. When boat fishing over a deep water wreck fish are so aggressive towards a bait or lure they are sometimes foul hooked. From the shore, where fish are scarcer, they may appear fussier and this is mainly due to there instinct giving them tunnel vision towards a partticular source of food.
Fish are quick to advantage of a natural food glut, such as the mass moult of peeler crabs in spring or during winter, when an onshore storm rips open a sandbar spilling marine life into the surfor shallows. At other times fish are opportunist scavengers, but the availabity of natural food and competition from others has the greatest influence on what they are looking for. Lugworms and squid are natural baits, How many times do you find squid or lugworm in a fish's stomach? not often, but the fish know the scent and taste of both baits and it is often their most popular list perhaps crabs,shrimps and small fish are most often found inside cod and they are baits that will catch cod.
But there presentation in a natural live state is difficult, however, cod are more accustomed to finding lug and squid dead or mashed up and so their presentation on the hook is not perticularly crucial.

Ron

Squid, Sandeel, Makky and Black are the killer Bait off the Pier, caught off each

iv caught bass that have been full of little snaills and crabs i personally think if a fish is hungry it will take any thing iv used my tropical fish tank to practice on they will allways go for what ever is there but the dont allways eat it but they do have a go same as chris says about cod they will some times just suck the bait befor eating it thats when they hook them self then we have the common garden worm specialy on river estuaries they are used a lot in preston docks with good catches of flounder jonty