Bluegills and carps or baffallo fish would be and an excellent combination. Years ago I used to date a girl, her mom lived in Houston and she had a little fountain in front of her house no more than a few yards in diameter, not sure how deep, didn't pay too much attention on details, lol. In it she grew Lilly pads and 3 Koi, a species of carp just to clean her tank. The tank bottom was kind of thick plastic tarp, not cement, save money and for easy maintenance.

Doesn't take a lot of money to build a tank like that, I don't think. Just an idea...

unless you raise chickens

Chicken breast... It's my go to "any size" bait... Cut into cubes and put on a hook. Drift fish with it.. It's basically all I use anymore.. I've spent half a day catching blue gill and chicken out fished it hands down.

Bluegill and chicken breast work about equal for me. Always amazed that a 2 lb blue can swallow whole a 3" gill on an 8/0 hook. Easiest bait there is to get. Perch trap and ATM card and I can be fishing at first light.

I would suggest stocking up on shad and bluegill when you can find them and freezing some for those days when you can't get any.

On the chicken breast do you use anything on them. Or just cut them up in small parts?

I soak mine in minced garlic. Don't know if it makes a difference but I do know that garlic is something that catfish like. I catch a lot of eater fish, about 50/50 blues and channels on garlic flavored dough bait.

Crawdads work well.

Ask around on here for anyone who bowfishes and ask to meet them at the boat ramp after a night out bowfishing. Cut carp into 1 inch cubes, salt it and freeze it into gallon bags with enough cubes per bag to bait all your lines.

My neighbor would bring me 75-100lbs of carp after a night of bowfishing I would imagine that would last quite a long time.

You could always carry a bag of cut bait with you as backup in case you didnt find shad, what I use when running lines on lavon is threadfin shad about 3 inches long. I can usually catch a ton of them and that size seems to bring in the perfect eating size fish.

Cut gizzard shad and common carp. Both put out a very oily scent trail that calls in the cats. They love it, and IMHO I don't think there are better baits.

I knew an old gentleman that never fished with anything but hand dug earth worms from under his rabbit coops. That old man just happened to be my dad. Funny thing is he out fished me.

Goldfish,many baitshops have them 3 to 5 inch goldfish

Good luck with your commercial endeavor! I think you have some pretty good suggestions here already by better fishermen than myself. But let me toss out a bait suggestion for opinions. I've been considering using squid.

A fishing buddy of mine likes to use hot dogs soaked in garlic and powdered kool-aid. Last Nov. I fished out of Freeport with MJ. We caught two 5 foot Black tips in a very short time span using Stingray for bait. I brought back two Stingray. I'm going to try them on Blues.