Fishing With Live Bait

[MIbassyaker]

You guys know there is more to live bait fishing than putting a worm on a hook below a bobber and making it sit there for 3 hours, right?

 

Fishing a ned rig or other grub on a jighead is not much different than fishing a small shiner or other minnow on a jighead, a very common northern rig for smallmouth and walleye.

 

Think your strike-detection is pretty good?  OK, come fish some crawlers with me on on a live-bait split-shot rig with light spinning tackle. 

 

If a bait company created an artificial shiner or nightcrawler that squirmed around on its own like real live bait, and smelled and tasted like the real thing, I'm sure you'd never buy one and use it, right? Right?

[F14A-B]

Hahaha.. Apparently you have never fished for Florida largemouth bass with golden shiners..

By your own admission you state you don't fish live bait.. ( have you ever Brayberry? )

Suit yourself, but it takes more skill than chunkin plastic crawdads aimlessly .. ( just keeping shiners alive can be a helluva challenge.. Anyways..

[scaleface]

There is little doubt in my mind that I can take a shiner , a bobber and a weedless hook { I would use the old PorkO hooks } go to some downed trees along a dropoff at my favorite lake and catch some impressive bass . I just dont want to go though the trouble of acquiring , transporting ,and keeping the bait healthy . 

[Daniel My Brother]

Learning to cast a throw net out in the yard, then stalking a school of minnows, making a perfect toss and watching that net open over your target will put a smile on anyone's face, and it's a great way to find out what's swimming in the rivers you like to fish. I would use live bait more often, but opening a package of soft plastics is so much easier.

[scaleface]

Learning to cast a throw net out in the yard, then stalking a school of minnows, making a perfect toss and watching that net open over your target will put a smile on anyone's face, and it's a great way to find out what's swimming in the rivers you like to fish. I would use live bait more often, but opening a package of soft plastics is so much easier.

I'm a catfish angler too . I use a castnet to catch shad . I dont try to keep them alive . I bought a nice aerator from bass pro but they still died . Now I just drop them in an ice chest to keep them fresh .

[Daniel My Brother]

I'm a catfish angler too . I use a castnet to catch shad . I dont try to keep them alive . I bought a nice aerator from bass pro but they still died . Now I just drop them in an ice chest to keep them fresh .

We catfish some, we'll catch shad and put them in one bucket, then after they finish stressing out in that bucket, we put them in a second bucket of fresh water and this seems to keep them alive longer.

[Lendiesel22]

Big minnows are VERY effective. I fish them on a split shot rig using Gamakatsu

#6 Octopus Circle Hooks. On the Tennessee River we need to hook them in the

mouth (lower jaw through upper jaw) to keep the minnow from drowning. The

small hook keeps them alive and active much longer than using bigger hooks.

DO NOT be frugal with your bait, the minnow MUST be fresh and frisky.

Although I agree, and fish live bait in clear lakes in MD when 1 cove can hold bass,walleyes,and pike anglers spend time making our artificials appear hurt or dying. i.e. the slow fall of a fluke or a weightless senko. When live bait has caught one or 2 fish it gets beat up and stops producing. Putting on a fresh bait can start the action right back up on species mentioned above as well as panfish. Take the live bait away in the same situation and you find yourself trying to fish similar size and close to the same colors as the live bait....and more times than not you are going to fish those baits as wounded or dying. Go figure.

[Bluebasser86]

Lures will out fish live bait at times just because of how time consuming live bait fishing is. Bass do not just automatically attack a live prey item just because it's there. I've watched bass examine a live bait fish for an extremely long period of time, and occasionally they'll turn and swim away. Of course there will be times when live bait produces a few fish when lures strike out. 

 

I fish livebait specifically for bass a few times every year (usually shad). My preferred method is to freeline live shad in likely areas. I use a small octopus hook through the nostrils and they'll swim well and stay alive for quite awhile. 

[bigbill]

Live bait will out fish lures, worms, jigs, etc. all day every day.

Once u learn the presentations you will out fish live bait.

My buddy was using live minnows dropping them in the weed pockets. I was dropping the mepps timber doodle in the weed pockets I surpass his numbers. The size 0 silver blade with the 4" split double tail grub timber doodle weedless bait works awesome.

Once we master every bait with its different presentations trust me the catch numbers will go way up. The bass like baits moving.

I was fishing two rod setups, one live bait and one lures. As I became better at picking the correct pattern with the right presentation I out fished the live bait setup.

[Nelson Wormefeller]

My Dad caught his personal best Largemouth this Sunday. He was slow reeling a nightcrawler drop shot.