Nightcrawlers

[optimator]

5 minutes ago, frosty said:

Harvesting a few bass is better for the population than strictly catch and release. 

I know that. There are plenty of guys that do it. I don't need to. 

[FishDewd]

I wasn't aware it was possible to catch a bass with a nightcrawler (in theory, sure, but not actually in practice). Whenever I fish with live worms, I get perch #1, and catfish #2. Pretty sure they'll beat any bass to it in most cases, but maybe it depends on what lives in your waters.

[frosty]

5 minutes ago, FishDewd said:

I wasn't aware it was possible to catch a bass with a nightcrawler (in theory, sure, but not actually in practice). Whenever I fish with live worms, I get perch #1, and catfish #2. Pretty sure they'll beat any bass to it in most cases, but maybe it depends on what lives in your waters.

Around here you can’t keep the bluegill off of them long enough usually. I remember fishing in Minnesota on vacation, the perch would devour a worm in a split second!

[bigbill]

First bass don’t hit a worm balled up or knotted up on a hook like other fish do. You put the hook in the nose of the night crawler and let the body dangle. This works, I seen bass strike 10”/12” culprit works with the hook in the nose of the plastic worm. I use a weighted, weedless hook and a worm rattle, one shot of scent with a plastic work.

[Cak920]

A slip bobber and a crawler with 3+ inches hanging down. Keep it just above the weeds. Can be a pain if there’s a lot of panfish but it works. 

45 minutes ago, FishDewd said:

I wasn't aware it was possible to catch a bass with a nightcrawler (in theory, sure, but not actually in practice). Whenever I fish with live worms, I get perch #1, and catfish #2. Pretty sure they'll beat any bass to it in most cases, but maybe it depends on what lives in your waters.

I run in to a lot of people that are surprised seeing me and others fishing smallies in a local river with a night crawler but it works. Catch the occasional carp or catfish but the crawler catches more bass than lures there probably 60-70% of the time 

[FishDewd]

1 hour ago, bigbill said:

First bass don’t hit a worm balled up or knotted up on a hook like other fish do. You put the hook in the nose of the night crawler and let the body dangle. This works, I seen bass strike 10”/12” culprit works with the hook in the nose of the plastic worm. I use a weighted, weedless hook and a worm rattle, one shot of scent with a plastic work.

Ah that might be why then. I normally hook them with the intention of catching panfish, up the shank with just a bit dangling off. That's how I rig my dropshots and use them along weedbanks. Perch destroy it.

[Mbirdsley]

heck yeah crawlers catch bass.  Growing up that is the only way we did it.  We didn't have money for any of that artificial stuff as kids.  We caught the majority on them bottom fishing in the rivers. Even sucker fishing we rarely gut hooked a sucker.  You just need to be on your game and don't let them swallow the hook. Me personally, I would try using a smaller sized circle hook maybe in the 6-4 size range with a worm hooked once or twice in the tail and a split shot about 12-24 inches above the worm. if river fishing find a deep run throw the crawler up stream and let it drift down.  In the river I would only use half a crawler.  That way they don't nip the tails off and waist your crawlers ( another trick we used as kids to make the crawlers go farther). Adjust split shot to river current.  If fishing a lake I would probally fish it like senko cast it out and let it slowly fall to the bottom.  Enclosed is a pic of my brother and his son ( who caught the smallie) who took a nice C & R smallie during a kids sucker tournament. *Legal disclaimer*  No bass were harmed during this post.

[soflabasser]

3 hours ago, Cak920 said:

A slip bobber and a crawler with 3+ inches hanging down. Keep it just above the weeds. Can be a pain if there’s a lot of panfish but it works. 

I run in to a lot of people that are surprised seeing me and others fishing smallies in a local river with a night crawler but it works. Catch the occasional carp or catfish but the crawler catches more bass than lures there probably 60-70% of the time 

I have seen many YouTube videos of people catching quality sized smallmouth bass in rivers with nightcrawlers but I have not tried it yet. Every smallmouth bass I have caught so far has been on a artificial lure but I have a open mind and will consider using nightcrawlers for river smallmouth bass the next time I fish for smallmouth bass. 

[mattkenzer]

I am surprised that no one mentioned injecting air .... or maybe they did and i missed it.

In my neck of the woods, we call it "Blow Worm Fishing" .... deadly on trout.

[Darren.]

27 minutes ago, mattkenzer said:

I am surprised that no one mentioned injecting air .... or maybe they did and i missed it.

In my neck of the woods, we call it "Blow Worm Fishing" .... deadly on trout.

I almost did...great technique for bass.

[NYWayfarer]

1 hour ago, mattkenzer said:

I am surprised that no one mentioned injecting air .... or maybe they did and i missed it.

In my neck of the woods, we call it "Blow Worm Fishing" .... deadly on trout.

My tackle bag always has one of those Berkley Worm Blowers in it.

 

16 hours ago, frosty said:

Around here you can’t keep the bluegill off of them long enough usually. I remember fishing in Minnesota on vacation, the perch would devour a worm in a split second!

As mentioned in another post in this thread, sight fishing for Bass when using Nightcrawlers helps.

 

I patrol the banks quietly  looking for shallow Bass. Toss the Nightcrawler past them a bit and then hold on for dear life when they hit it.

[Hyrule Bass]

16 hours ago, FishDewd said:

I wasn't aware it was possible to catch a bass with a nightcrawler (in theory, sure, but not actually in practice). Whenever I fish with live worms, I get perch #1, and catfish #2. Pretty sure they'll beat any bass to it in most cases, but maybe it depends on what lives in your waters.

its certainly possible, youre also likely to pick up a bunch of other species, which myself i dont mind catching any species of fish willing to bite my hook. the best way to bass fish with crawlers is to sight fish for them...

 

 

16 hours ago, bigbill said:

First bass don’t hit a worm balled up or knotted up on a hook like other fish do.

this is simply not true. the 2nd biggest bass i ever caught was on the hook like this. if not the white perch wouldve easily stolen my night crawler in seconds...

[snake95]

11 hours ago, Hyrule Bass said:

On 5/10/2018 at 8:09 PM, bigbill said:

First bass don’t hit a worm balled up or knotted up on a hook like other fish do.

this is simply not true. the 2nd biggest bass i ever caught was on the hook like this. if not the white perch wouldve easily stolen my night crawler in seconds..

Agreed.   

 

I'm surprised by this thread - as a kid that's the main way we caught most types of fish in my hometown: crawlers on a snelled hook or a jighead.

 

 

[FishDewd]

Well I have to try to catch a bass with a nightcrawler now! Just so happens I raise them in my fridge and have some giant worms to try and feed them!

[Lord Castlereagh]

So, I went fishing with NCs yesterday and it left me quite puzzled. Right off the bat, if I look at the responses to my last NC posting, I can see that there is a great deal of mystery behind fishing with these creatures. One man was amazed that you could even gun for bass with them, while others described them as VERY effective. Just think for a moment how strange that little fact is...

 

Well, after burning through 12 NCs yesterday, I can see where the mystery comes from.

 

Let's first eliminate the "ball" method of putting the hook on the worm. I never got a nibble with the ball.

 

HOWEVER, when wacky rigging them or putting them on in any way "loose," the bites were truly amazing! Unlike anything I have EVER seen before. The average time in the water before a strike was UNDER five seconds. But... I did not land one single fish. The fish would hit, I would retrieve, and half or all of the worm would be gone. Believe me, I tried every method I could think of, from a vicious hook set at the earliest possible instant, to letting the fish take and run with the bait. Nothing worked.

 

What am I doing wrong?

What should I do?

Why does a plastic wacky snare the fish, but a real worm not?

Why do some states (from what I read on my first NC thread) outlaw NCs?

 

By the way, after I fed the d**n bass all 12 of my NCs, I switched to a Senko wacky rig, and bagged 3 bass.

 

Please help.

 

Thanks

[ratherbfishin1]

Do you know they were bass because bluegill will usually be the first to hit a nightcrawler and bluegill generally can’t choke your lure/bait as well as a bass can

[georgeyew]

Are you sure that it was the bass hitting the nightcrawlers? Bluegills love them and will bite the ends of them and take them off the hook quickly.

[Lord Castlereagh]

7 minutes ago, georgeyew said:

Are you sure that it was the bass hitting the nightcrawlers? Bluegills love them and will bite the ends of them and take them off the hook quickly.

Well, darn! You two might have solved the mystery just that fast. The pond I fish is PACKED with bluegills, and there were hundreds of 'em crowding the banks yesterday. I bet that's it.

[J Francho]

Definitely getting robbed by panfish.  You can fish for them, by downsizing the hook.  There's no worry of missing bass with a smaller hook, and you'll hook the little devils to prove it to yourself what's happening.

 

I merged these into one thread, so we can get the whole story into a single thread.  That way, when someone does a search, and finds one thread, they won't have to hunt for the other.

[MIbassyaker]

Yep, sounds exactly like bluegills and sunfish -- they are notorious live bait thieves.

 

TO understand bass anglers attitudes about live bait, it's important to realize that modern bass fishing owes much of its current popularity to tournament sport fishing, in which live bait is prohibited, and where bass are targeted specifically to the exclusion of any other species. Most bass anglers have never tried fishing for bass with live bait, and assume the use of live nightcrawlers, minnows, leeches and other critters is simply for catching other species like panfish, walleye, catfish or others, but not bass. But of course, bass love live bait as well, it's just that everything else in the water loves it too - live bait's major advantage can also be its curse, if your goal is to target bass specifically.

[NYWayfarer]

33 minutes ago, MIbassyaker said:

Most bass anglers have never tried fishing for bass with live bait, and assume the use of live nightcrawlers, minnows, leeches and other critters is simply for catching other species like panfish, walleye, catfish or others, but not bass.

Funny but it was the exact opposite for me. I grew up fishing for Bass with live Nightcrawlers, Shiners and Crawfish exclusively. Back then I dabbled with lures here and there. It wasn't until I picked up a Senko that I started using artificial baits with any frequency.

 

I have been using 100% artificial baits for the last 3 years.

[MIbassyaker]

1 minute ago, NYWayfarer said:

Funny but it was the exact opposite for me. I grew up fishing for Bass with live Nightcrawlers, Shiners and Crawfish exclusively. I dabbled with lures here and there. It wasn't until I picked up a Senko that I started using artificial baits with any frequency.

 

I have been using 100% artificial baits for the last 3 years.

It was the opposite for me too, although I wasn't fishing "for" bass, so much as for anything fun to catch and possibly eat. We mostly fished live nightcrawlers, minnows and frogs for walleye, pike, and channel cats.  One day I caught a stocky brown fish I hadn't seen before, and discovered there were bass in the river too (I hear the smallie population is now better-established there now, but it wasn't at the time).  While we had artificials too, and caught fish on them regularly (especially grubs and in-line spinners), it was only when i started fishing for bass almost exclusively several years ago that I went all artificial.

[J Francho]

Same here, we were just fishing off the dock for whatever would bite.  Occasionally someone would catch a bass.  Later, when I was a little older and better at casting, I used "lures" which were various cranks, topwaters, spoons, and inline spinners.  Until some nice guy in a bass boat caught two nice fish in a row from "the slop" near our dock that I avoided because baits didn't go through.  When I asked how his bait gets through, he showed me a proper Texas Rig, and gave me some worms, hooks, and bullet sinkers.  That totally changed the game for me.

[WRB]

I believe Chris’s 18+ was a night crawler bass. Fish where the bsss are located not a school of hungry bluegill.

Tom