Needless to lose ship bait (6)
I believe the answer is:
needle
'bait' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'needless to lose ship' is the wordplay.
'to lose' suggests deleting specific letters.
'ship' becomes 'ss'.
'needless' with 'ss' taken out is 'NEEDLE'.
(Other definitions for needle that I've seen before include "anger" , "peak" , "Leaf of a 15 across" , "Irritation" , "Annoy; indicator" .)