take the bait

take the bait

To respond to someone's actions or words in the way that they intended. Likened to a fish attempting to eat the bait on a hook. That's just what he wants you to do. Don't take the bait. The undercover officer changed the conversation to the recent burglary, hoping the thief would take the bait and confess.
See also: bait, take
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • swallow the bait
  • rise to the bait
  • pogey bait
  • crow bait
  • clean slate, have a/start with a
  • cut bait
  • get (one's) rocks off on (something)
  • as though
  • be out for the count
  • a Monday morning quarterback
References in classic literature
When they're lousy it's a sign they've all been herdin' together by the thousand, and when they take the bait that way they're hungry.
Captains Courageous
Daniel, a second year pupil at St Columba's in Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire, said: "When I felt something take the bait I was shocked and when I realised it was a shark I couldn't believe it.
A BIT OF A SHARK; Dan, 13, lands whopper on his FIRST fishing trip
The Religious Right first tried simply renaming creationism "the theory of abrupt appearance" and "evidence against evolution." But alter these misfires failed, they simply retooled their ideas, removed some of the more outrageously bad science and sent it out there, hoping some school district somewhere would take the bait.
Of Pandas and plots: what's at stake in the Dover ID lawsuit