Last year I spent around $350 on bait so decided to Purchased a Vacuum packing machine in view to save on Bait costs by packing my own fresh bait.
It is awesome, the bait can be fresh and kept in the fridge for a week and is just like it was caught ,The frozen also thaws out like it was fresh also, you just place them in the film so as they dont overlap and the machine sucks out the air and seals it, so far I have used YEM & Kahawai and I am just salting my first lot of Kahawai. You can vary the size of bait packets.
I will post some photos tomorrow. Its also going to be awesome for veges from the garden.