I do think bait can be quite area specific. I’ve had loads of hounds on frozen crab but also a fair few on squid.
No doubt fresh crab would be even better but I’ve never found I needed it.
They don’t seem to be too fussy here as far as crab quality goes, plus later in the season squid can work quite well too.
Live prawn is absolutely deadly if I’m in a position to catch some while I fish.
Interestingly, last year there was a real glut of starving hounds here and I heard a couple of reliable accounts of people catching them on mackerel. Now I would have said you could fish for a week with mackerel and not get a single hound, so just shows they must have been starving.
I know on the south coast people get quite a few on ragworm, but it’s a commonly used bait there, whereas we don’t use it as much here and indeed, it’s harder to come by.
So whether the hounds here don’t take rag as much or people just don’t use it much, I don’t know.
Tbh I don’t go particularly mad for hounds. Usually have a couple of trips to get them out of my system then lose interest.
Ironically, last year when they were coming in left and right, I had three trips and didn’t get one, lol.
