What I do during the winter since good fresh bait is hard to find I go offshore on party boats and just keep what I catch whole and take the heads or carcasses from others peoples catches lol there's always good bait offshore
actually not neccesseraly if you put a piece of rotten bait i the water it has a different smell then a fresh piece of bait but water washed away the scent. so a fresh or frozen piece of bait in the water for a really long length of time doesnt give off much if any scent.it probaly still gives off a scent that a shark can pick up but nothing compared to what a piece of bait that gives off right when it enters the water...and i dont think a piece off bait under the water would start to rot IMO.
actually not neccesseraly if you put a piece of rotten bait i the water it has a different smell then a fresh piece of bait but water washed away the scent. so a fresh or frozen piece of bait in the water for a really long length of time doesnt give off much if any scent.it probaly still gives off a scent that a shark can pick up but nothing compared to what a piece of bait that gives off right when it enters the water...and i dont think a piece off bait under the water would start to rot IMO.
Rory just to let you know it does lol! One of the bulls i filleted i threw the whole carcass in the lake by my dock, about 5 feet deep after about a week later you couldn't even get down to the dock. Meat can most definitely rot in water 
im sure dan
I have been fishing for the last three nights. Every night I have been using bonita and large spanish mackerel that have all been frozen. I haven't turned a click. After 5 hours there's not even marks on the bait from crabs. Maybe it's because there are no sharks in the area but I just find it a little weird to have such good baits out and have them not even get touched.
i caught a small dusky on a rotten piece of bonito after 2 hours of soaking....but before that it sat for 14 hours in a cooler in 105 degree weather with no ice
Well i know when fishign for crabs and eel where i live rotten bait will smell a lot more but as mentioned the smell is diffrent.If sharks like it im not sure but some of them do feed on old carcasses.One thing is for sure they do rot under water what would ahppen to the dead fish otherwise ;D and i know when ice fishing for pike that my baits starts to rot after about 5-6 hours and thats in pretty cold water.
I would like to add my 2 cents to this thread, based on my limited Sharking experience.
The would be no argument from any one that fresh is best, if you have the choice. When we get the rare opportunity to go sharking, we are usually renting a vacation home, that has a freezer. When we catch rays we put them straight in a trashbag and throw them in the freezer. After about 4 hours we take them out and cut them up for baits, because of this, we loose none of the goodness. A when we deploy these baits, they are kept in ziplock bags until we dump them off the kayak, they are still half frozen. I really think this may even improve on a fresh bait cut and run. Has anyone else done this before?