FRANKLIN -- As soon as he set up camp on the middle Allegheny River on a recent weekend, Jeff Santillo waded into riffles near a wide grass bed to collect bait.

"I'm working my way up the food chain," said Santillo of Butler, who used his 5-foot trout rod, 4-pound test and small chunks of crawler to catch blue-dot minnows -- one of several bait fishes the locals call riffle runners -- for targeting walleyes and bass.

"Fish hit on them better than store-bought bait," he said. "They're used to their smell ... the sort of forage they eat. Bait shops use chemicals to keep their minnows alive and fish can sense that."

Although some bait dealers use Stress Coat and other minnow tank conditioners, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologist Al Woomer said hasn't seen studies comparing the success rates of wild vs. store-bought baits.

"Fish have favorite forage and can probably smell what's familiar," he said, "whereas you're likely to find only certain kinds of minnows, like fatheads, in shops."

An angler's confidence in a particular bait goes a long way, too, he said.

When minnows are "hitting good," Santillo said, he can fill the submerged bucket hanging from his belt in a couple of hours, and he finds it "relaxing." It also saves him money, since store-bought minnows can run more than $2 a dozen.

And while he said catching bait is an "old timers'" approach to fishing, it's as popular as ever in some parts, according to Bob Miller of Kennerdell, who always keeps fresh-caught minnows in his 24-foot jon boat Riffle Runner.

"It's a common thing around here to get your own bait," he said. "I never come out on the river that I don't see folks doing it. It's actually pretty enjoyable."

Riffle runners aren't the only bait folks collect from the Allegheny and its tributaries. Although it gets harder to find them heading into fall, hellgrammites -- the larval Dobsonfly -- are a summertime favorite for walleyes and smallmouth bass, according to outdoors guide and writer Darl Black of Cochranton.

"If you've ever noticed white egg masses on boulders and bridge abutments, that's Dobsonfly eggs," he said. "They fall into the water in early summer and spend a number of years under rocks -- flat, good-sized rocks with silt underneath -- always in really fast, high-quality water."

Seining for them is typically a two-person job. Black and his wife Marilyn use a 4-foot-square piece of mesh rigged on both sides to broom handles, with a weight on the bottom and a float on top. Marilyn holds the seine below rocks in the riffles, while Darl stirs the substrate with a rake or hoe. To avoid getting pinched, they pick up the hellgrammites by their hard collar and place them in a bucket with a rock.

"If you don't give them something to hide under, they'll cannibalize each other," Darl said.

To fish hellgrammites effectively, he flips them over and inserts a circle hook from the bottom up through the center of the hard collar.

"Don't hook them through their soft body, or split their hard collar or you'll lose them," he said. "And when a fish bites, set the hook immediately. Don't wait for the fish to feed, like you would a minnow."

As weather turns cold, hellgrammites become scarce, and Black turns to shiners, chubs and large minnows, setting wire-mesh traps baited with fish-flavored cat food in deeper pools near-shore.

While anglers say baits work best in the watersheds from which they are harvested, it is illegal to transport live fish, as well as fish eggs, caught or bought in Lake Erie and other Great Lakes watersheds.

"You could be introducing a disease or a species that doesn't belong," said Pennyslvania Fish and Boat Commission southwest regional law enforcement chief Emil Svetahor. "We strongly discourage people from moving bait around."