for minnows, you should usually just buy a casting net, but they will eat anything, really, i recommend chicken necks.
Minnows, nightcrawlers, crankbaits, jerkbaits.
Live minnows, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, jerkbaits that mimic baitfish.
For freshwater, use shad, shiners, blueback herring. Saltwater baitfish include mullet, ballyhoo, popeye minnows, cigar minnows.
baiting is more like trapping than hunting, but nuts are high on their menu.
Where I fish i'd say the bait most used would be minnows. Now if someone asked what lure was mostly used that might be a question with a hundred answers.
Live minnows work best, but many are taken on the various type of jigs, made for this species, that imitate minnows.
whenever i go fishing i like to use tiny bits of hot dogs.
As the fish start to slow down and go deeper in cooler waters you can use live bait, such as minnows, to get a strike out of them. A minnow-like lure on a slip sinker works well too.
Up here in Canada we use worms on a Walleye (Pickerel) harness. The harness is a series of hooks (3 or 4) spaced out with red beads and small silver spinners. Alternately many people have success using live minnows in the spring and the fall.
For the same reason that puppies don't grow to be the size of houses. Minnows grow until they reach the proper adult size for their species. If it was much larger, we wouldn't call them "minnows" (which is a generic term meaning approximately "small fish of the type used for bait").
use frog lures or topwater
live anchovies and squid