In the '60s, I lived in Sunderland. My landlord pulled up in his pickup one day with a sturgeon in the back. It's tail was sticking up above the tailgate, and its nose was wedged into a corner just aft of the cab--honest. He used to run clothesline tied to glass milk bottles sealed with wax with huge hooks hanging down, and his grandmother's blood sausage for bait. This was just below the Sunderland bridge, as it flowed down toward Northamption--asparagas and Hubbard squash country!! (If you've ever attended a hog slaughter, then you'll know about grandmothers and blood sausage--gag a maggot!!) He used to get big snapping turtles and yellow-bellied catfish, too.
Recognize that all this is tempered by forty years of living with the brain cells I killed off during the '60s!!
The big advantage of using sausage for bait is that you can eat your bait if the fish don't.