If you are going for coarse fish species in the Fraser River, then commercially developed bait products are indeed an overkill for the amount of money that you are spending on them.
A mixture of plain flour and water that is made into a dough works just as well for peamouth chub, northern pikeminnow etc. For better result, add some flavour into it when mixing. Something sweet, something fishy, something shrimpy, be creative and experiment. To prevent the bait from being too sticky or dissolving too fast in the water, add some cornmeal into the mixture. Shrimp, dew worm, tiny pieces of fish flesh, roe also work, but just messier.
Come on out to Fish for the Future on Saturday July 11th, I'll have all these bait available for people to experiment with.
For stocked rainbow trout in the Lower Mainland lakes, deli shrimp is my favorite bait to use, simply because they are easy to thread onto the hook and fish cannot resist them.