Fishing With Live Bait, My Experiences

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

 

While I have been thinking of posting this as a subject for a couple weeks, the recent post by Brett's_daddy reminded me to actually make the post.

 

I've been going over nearly 36 years of fishing memories.  Dad started taking me when I was around 2 years old, and I'd fish for chubs with live bait while he caught smallmouth (or, at the private pond, I caught sunfish and he caught largemouth.))

 

I've tried to remember times when I've caught bass on live bait, and only two come to mind:

 

• I once found some schooling fingerling bass when I was still mostly using live bait.  I tossed them a hook and worm and got a bite.  After I did this the second time Dad made me stop because he didn't want them stressed. 

 

• I was bobber fishing off a dock once and saw the bobber swimming around.  A really small largemouth fry had managed to eat the #8 (I think; smallest I had) hook.  I was also still small enough to thumb the critter.

 

After this, I have nothing.  All other bass I've caught throughout those years were on lures.  Heck, even rock bass took Rooster Tail inline spinners to catch.

 

My first largemouth of any size, if I recall, was on a Hula Popper.

 

This is not to say that live bait has been useless to me.  I've caught lots of drum and catfish on nightcrawlers, plenty of panfish on redworms, and quite a few crappie on minnows.  They were fun, and still fishing is still sometimes fun.

 

I just have never been able to get live bait to produce black bass for me. 

 

Is my experience unique, or have you experienced the same?

 

Thank you,

 

Josh

 

[scaleface]

Look at my avatar . there are two nice largemouth , the first I ever caught , along with a channel cat and bluegills. They were caught in a farm pond using a cane pole and night crawlers. I remember it well. I have used nightcrawler and minnows a few times in my life  since then but haven't caught a lot of bass with them. Sometimes I catch one on bottom fishing for catfish . I just dont like to bother with it even though I know they will catch fish .

[NotnatsSamoht]

In my fishing spots live bait will only catch me turtles, there's to many of them for me to catch any fish, turtles eat the bait within 2 minutes of it being out.

[bigfruits]

I suggest maybe trying larger minnows. might be more attractive to the bass and less to the panfish.

[Goose52]

Wow - you were a prodigy - memories back to 2 years old !  I have a hard time remembering anything much before age 5 or so...

 

Anyway, millions of bass have been caught with live bait...after all, it's their regular dinner - huh...  Fish Chris caught "teeners" on nightcrawlers. Lots of double-digit bass caught on "indigenous swimbaits" (aka shiners - thank's Dwight for that term).

 

For me, I caught bass on worms and small brim when I was young...but don't have any recent experience at it since I fish artificials exclusively nowadays.  However, my first bass fishing lesson involved live bait.   I would have been about 7 years old or so and was fishing with my Dad - me with a cane pole - him with a casting rod.  He told me: "catch me a brim." So I caught a little brim and handed it to him. He took his casting rod, which he had rigged with a float and a big hook, and put that big hook through the back of the brim, just behind the dorsal fin. "Now" he said "I'll show you how to catch a bass." ...

[A-Jay]

The shiner fishing in FLA is a big deal

 

From what I've been told having never done it - often times it's The Only way to get bit there.

 

A-Jay

[punch]

I like using live bait when taking young kids out. Slip bobbers and fathead or crappie minnows will bring in largemouth.

[bigbill]

I never caught bigger bass over 3lbs. On live bait.(minnows) I hook the minnows in the lower lip so they twitch. I haven't used live bait in decades.

[F14A-B]

Caught FLMB To nearly 11.5 lb.. Caught untold numbers approaching 9 lb.. Caught hundreds of crappie, bluegill, catfish.. Carp, On live bait ( live )

If your not catching fish on live bait? Find a lake that has fish in it..or learn to actually locate the fish.. ( there is always golf )

[Senko lover]

Nightcrawlers = bass candy! That said, they also equal sunfish candy, which is why I stopped fishing them about a year and a half ago.

[badhatharry]

When I was about 10 or so back in the early '60's, my Dad and I were fishing a lake in Western Washington.  We started out casting plastics to some rows of pilings from a long abandoned log mill.  We were doing pretty well until the sun fell on the pilings and the largemouth shut down. So we tied on some Dick Knight spoons and started trolling for trout.  I forget what time of year it was but occasionally we were picking up these salmon smolt between 3 to 6 " long.  We would just remove them and throw them back as they were caught.  After about 6 or 8 of these catches, my Dad told me to leave it on the spoon.  Then he fires up the 6 horse and we speed over to the pilings.  I cast the smolt still attached to the spoon to the nearest dolphin and reeled back a 3 pound largemouth.

Needless to say that was our new pattern until the smolt stopped biting. Never happened again but it sure was fun while it lasted.

[MIbassyaker]

I caught my first bass - a 12" smallie - around the age of 13 on a nightcrawler. I had never seen one before, and Dad and I didn't even know there were bass in the river we fished (turns out there were some quite a ways upriver; they've expanded their range since then, I hear, nowadays there are a lot more in the section we used to fish). We used live crawlers, minnows, and sometimes frogs mostly to catch catfish, but sometimes drum, goldeye, and if we were really lucky, the occasional walleye or pike. I got into lures around then because I wanted to start targeting particular species, like that cool-lookin' bass. Since then I've used live bait occasionally for panfish or walleye when I'm out with family, but not for anything else in a long time. 

[OntarioFishingGuy]

Nothing against people who fish with live bait, it's just not my thing.

[Dogmatic]

https://youtu.be/6wuOWvwdeV8

...and dozens more if you Google the topic, but like I said in the other thread, "there's a time, and place for both".

[WRB]

The current world record bass caught by Kurita in Japan 22.3 lbs was caught on a live bluegill.

Depending on which top 25 all time LMB over 15 were caught using live crawdads or shiners.

Between the years of 1968 to 1971 I caught over 100 double digit bass using live crawdads, mud suckers and waterdogs, a ratio exceeding 10 to 1 live bait to artificial lures. Live bait fished by expert big bass anglers is more effective than artifical lures used by expert big bass anglers. The reason B.A.S.S. Tournaments outlawed using live bait is because it gives the angler an unfair advantage.

I stopped using live bait for bass fishing in 1971 because it was my belief live bait bordered on being unsportsmanlike behavior based on my own success using it.

Today, most bass anglers don't use live bait.

Tom

[Big Bait Fishing]

fishing for me is the anticipation of the bite while working artificial baits , knowing your working the bait just right and that any moment you'll feel the bass hit it , is what's it's all about !! fishing with live bait is just '' reeling it in '' which is not all that exhilirating ...

[Josh Smith]

Wow - you were a prodigy - memories back to 2 years old !  I have a hard time remembering anything much before age 5 or so...

 

But the short-term memory's shot.  There's always a trade-off.

 

I also remember Mom cutting my hair on the porch of the country home they rented.  Motorcycles would go by and I'd cry -- they were very loud.

 

The horses across the way never whinnied, so I grew up thinking they just blew, you know that noise they make?

 

Little Flat Rock River had a lot of... flat rocks.  Dad made me wear a life vest and I'd fish for chub minnows while he waded for smallmouth.  Some of my earliest memories are of fishing. 

 

Josh

[Josh Smith]

Caught FLMB To nearly 11.5 lb.. Caught untold numbers approaching 9 lb.. Caught hundreds of crappie, bluegill, catfish.. Carp, On live bait ( live )

If your not catching fish on live bait? Find a lake that has fish in it..or learn to actually locate the fish.. ( there is always golf )

 

I will take that back.  I did catch a bass on a nightcrawler a couple years ago.  It was a trailer on an inline spinner. 

 

As for there not being fish... I recall this year before the reservoirs went to flood stage my boy and I were fishing a likely looking place for crappie.

 

Bobber fishing wasn't producing, so I tied a spinnerbait on his ultralight and I put a Rat-L-Trap on mine.

 

He got hit with a nice size crappie and I got a good size smallmouth on the 'Trap in a matter of minutes. 

 

I mean, they're there, but for me anyway, generally don't bite unless there's some action.  Lots of times in the 10-acre lake I like so much, that means rattle jigs worked so hard that it would snap monofilament.

 

Maybe live bait is used too much where I live and they're wise to it?  Dunno.

 

Josh

[WRB]

My first fishing experiences date back to pre school age about 3 years old when I was water safe.

Unlike most kids we didn't use live bait on a bobber, we used a 1 1/2" triangle flag shaped piece of chamois dyed red on a size 8 bait holder hook a split shot using a cane pole to catch crappie for dinner. Earth worms didn't work very good and meal worms were too expensive. The dyed chamois lasted for days or until we lost the hook in a snag, so live bait wasn't needed.

I worked on a boat dock helping my older brother and earned enough money to buy my first rod & reel and 3 lures that used for bass. Hawaiian Wiggler #3 weedless spoon, CCB Creek Chub top water lure and jointed Pikie Minnow diving lure. I fished those same lures for a few years with good success and didn't think of using live bait until a vacation to lake Havasu in 1957. It was at Havasu I learned about using live waterdogs to catch big bass by catching a 11 lb bass. Lures didn't work well at Havasu because the gin clear water, no weed cover, so the bass were deep on structure and drifting a live water dog ( tiger salander ) hooked through the lips with big split shot over points worked great. That trip changed how I fished for bass the next 15 years.

I trapped live crawdads, live mud suckers or bait and occasionally bought live water dogs but they were expensive and hard to find locally. My bass fishing now included artifical lures and live bait, however the live bait caught big bass about 10 to 1 verses artifical lures. During the mid 60's we were learning how to catch Florida strain LMB and live bait like beak hooked crawdads worked far better than lures for those bass.

I finally stopped using live bait in 1971 and haven't used any live bait for bass since. Looking back that wasn't in my best interest when trying to catch a world record bass.

Tom

[massrob]

My first fishing experiences date back to pre school age about 3 years old when I was water safe.

Unlike most kids we didn't use live bait on a bobber, we used a 1 1/2" triangle flag shaped piece of chamois dyed red on a size 8 bait holder hook a split shot using a cane pole to catch crappie for dinner. Earth worms didn't work very good and meal worms were too expensive. The dyed chamois lasted for days or until we lost the hook in a snag, so live bait wasn't needed.

I worked on a boat dock helping my older brother and earned enough money to buy my first rod & reel and 3 lures that used for bass. Hawaiian Wiggler #3 weedless spoon, CCB Creek Chub top water lure and jointed Pikie Minnow diving lure. I fished those same lures for a few years with good success and didn't think of using live bait until a vacation to lake Havasu in 1957. It was at Havasu I learned about using live waterdogs to catch big bass by catching a 11 lb bass. Lures didn't work well at Havasu because the gin clear water, no weed cover, so the bass were deep on structure and drifting a live water dog ( tiger salander ) hooked through the lips with big split shot over points worked great. That trip changed how I fished for bass the next 15 years.

I trapped live crawdads, live mud suckers or bait and occasionally bought live water dogs but they were expensive and hard to find locally. My bass fishing now included artifical lures and live bait, however the live bait caught big bass about 10 to 1 verses artifical lures. During the mid 60's we were learning how to catch Florida strain LMB and live bait like beak hooked crawdads worked far better than lures for those bass.

I finally stopped using live bait in 1971 and haven't used any live bait for bass since. Looking back that wasn't in my best interest when trying to catch a world record bass.

Tom

I would kill to spend a day hearing all of your fishing stories. Guys like you are the reason this site is so great. Thank you

[einscodek]

I used to catch EVERYTHING with nightcrawlers

crappie, pumkinseed, bluegill, bass, perch mostly

 

Just dont like sittin there waiting for a bite.. I need to do something, feel like I'm hunting not trapping..

[bigbill]

It's all about stepping up to the challenge using lures.