Do nightcrawlers work as well as crawdads for creek smallies?

[Ohioguy25]

I fish a small river in southwest Ohio. I’ve been catching hardshell craws in the river and using them for bait, but I was in Canada this weekend fishing smallmouth with nightcrawlers on a decent sized lake. It worked pretty well, would this work better than crawdads or are crawdads by far the best? 

[DogBone_384]

As far as I remember, night crawlers work on ANYTHING!

[J Francho]

I can't speak for creek smallies, but back in the day we used live bait for them in Lake Ontario.  Some days, the crab bite was on, others it was crawlers.  Sometimes leeches did better.  These days, I do fine on spoons and DS plastics or Gulp!

[Black Hawk Basser]

I've caught a ton of smallies hanging a crawler under a float, right below dams.

[WRB]

1 hour ago, Ohioguy25 said:

I fish a small river in southwest Ohio. I’ve been catching hardshell craws in the river and using them for bait, but I was in Canada this weekend fishing smallmouth with nightcrawlers on a decent sized lake. It worked pretty well, would this work better than crawdads or are crawdads by far the best? 

Why use hard shell Crawdads when soft shells are preffered? Everything eats big nightcrawlers and small crawdads.

Creek smallies, don't overlook hellgrammites and Darner nymphs when catching your small crawdads.

Tom

[billmac]

Hard to say which is better.  Nightcrawlers are easier to come by.  Hellgrammites are awesome also if it's the right time of year.  I'm not above cracking open freshwater mussels and using pieces of them.  Ditto with tadpoles.

[TnRiver46]

I always have better luck with almost any live bait compared to crawdads. Creek minnows and helgramites are my favorite but night crawlers are also great. Drum always eat the crawdads 

[J Francho]

Give it a rest guys.  Useless comments removed.

[billmac]

I feel like crayfish are like the Senkos of live bait.  Really effective but really only good for one fish.

[Ohioguy25]

1 hour ago, billmac said:

I feel like crayfish are like the Senkos of live bait.  Really effective but really only good for one fish.

Exactly, that’s why I use them instead of nightcrawlers. I only want smallies.

[Deeare]

When taking my kids fishing I use either a live craw or a crawler on a mepps hook with a small Colorado blade.    For both I put a split shot about 18 inches above hook.   Both work great but the craw does better most of the time up here in the northeast.     I always rip off one of the craws claws.  

[WRB]

I went though a period about 5 years using live bait like crawdads, Waterdogs and big Canadian nightcrawlers  fly lined no weight around 1965 to 1970. All were very effective tothe degree I decided to only use artifical lures.

I believe Fish Chris BR member caught his PB LMB 18+ lbs on a fly lined tail hooked nightcrawler.

Tom

[Bluebasser86]

They work great, but if there's many panfish in the creek you'll potentially have an issue dealing with them stealing your bait with the crawlers.

[billmac]

On 8/28/2019 at 9:21 PM, Ohioguy25 said:

Exactly, that’s why I use them instead of nightcrawlers. I only want smallies.

Ha, good point, but what I meant was that they are only good for one bite, and then they are gone.

 

[Bird]

I don't like getting worm guts on my reels. Lol

Nightcrawlers do work but attract to much attention from pesky little fish.

 

Now if I'm taking a youngster fishing then nightcrawlers are perfect.

 

[Bdnoble84]

I used to use nightcrawlers all the time, but there are so many carp I gave up trying to catch smallies on them. As a sidenote, carp eat crawfish too. Talk about disappointing, think you just ran into a big catfish, only to find out its a 5-6lb carp.

[Ohioguy25]

4 hours ago, Bird said:

I don't like getting worm guts on my reels. Lol

Nightcrawlers do work but attract to much attention from pesky little fish.

 

Now if I'm taking a youngster fishing then nightcrawlers are perfect.

 

I agree but nightcrawlers by FAR seem like they catch more smallmouth than crawdads. Not to mention the snags w craws. Nightcrawlers are much easier to acquire and bait as well. 

[NYWayfarer]

6 hours ago, Bird said:

I don't like getting worm guts on my reels. Lol

Nightcrawlers do work but attract to much attention from pesky little fish.

Same here. I hate the mess. I will carry a wet and a dry rag just for cleaning my hands before handling my reel after baiting my hook with a crawler.

 

I will catch a dozen Panfish to every Smallmouth In my local creek.

[ike8120]

On 8/28/2019 at 12:06 PM, DogBone_384 said:

As far as I remember, night crawlers work on ANYTHING!

Just ask my wife LOL

[Eaglecreek fly bum]

They will hit crawlers but so does everything else.Ive caught my biggest smallies on minnows and hellgramites and where you fish they have plenty of both.I second the hardshells craws,you’ll catch every drum in the hole.Do you mind naming the creek you fish,ive fished every decent sized creek from brush to little Miami and several in Kentucky.

[Ohioguy25]

On 9/12/2019 at 10:08 AM, Eaglecreek fly bum said:

They will hit crawlers but so does everything else.Ive caught my biggest smallies on minnows and hellgramites and where you fish they have plenty of both.I second the hardshells craws,you’ll catch every drum in the hole.Do you mind naming the creek you fish,ive fished every decent sized creek from brush to little Miami and several in Kentucky.

Pardon my extremely late response lol, but I fish little Miami.