Where all my live bait fisherman

[Uknowjusticemill]

I know some people get all up in their feelings about people using live bait to catch bass, but to me it's just as fun and still takes a level of skill to pull off because you have to find and catch your bait, then find and catch your fish. I do like lure fishing even though I get less bites because when I do land a fish on a lure I get more satisfaction because I suck at throwing lures, whats yalls favorite live bait for bass for me personally it's live Gizzard Shad but minnows and shiners work just as well, and DONT FORGET live crawfish they are harder to get and I receive less bites but the few I do get are quality fish.

[Mr. Aquarium]

I use live bait, Mostly for other species tho. 

[Smells like fish]

If we can get them all to post to this thread we can ban them in one fell swoop!!! ?

[Finessegenics]

Don't use live bait to specifically target bass but leeches are my favorite. They get a lot of use under slip bobbers for walleye but I like using them when drifting, on the lightest jighead I can get away with. Of course, a lot of bass get caught that way too. 

[TnRiver46]

Present and accounted for! Lure chuckers can’t even throw a cast net......

 

don’t forget helgrammites aka grampus. Those things are magic 

[Uknowjusticemill]

2 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Present and accounted for! Lure chuckers can’t even throw a cast net......

 

don’t forget helgrammites aka grampus. Those things are magic 

 

I hear the smallmouth tear those things up like candy, where do you get something like that a good bait shop or do you have to catch or trap them?

[TnRiver46]

Just now, Uknowjusticemill said:

 

I hear the smallmouth tear those things up like candy, where do you get something like that a good bait shop or do you have to catch or trap them?

Kick seine 

[Luke Barnes]

If I could buy minnows locally I would use them a ton. But the closest bait shop to me is at any of the lakes within an hour drive and then I'm just going to fish the lake and not ponds close to my house. I've never trapped minnows or craws. I tried a cheapy minnow trap from wish.com and it was junk and fell apart. 

[MN Fisher]

4 minutes ago, Luke Barnes said:

If I could buy minnows locally I would use them a ton. But the closest bait shop to me is at any of the lakes within an hour drive and then I'm just going to fish the lake and not ponds close to my house. I've never trapped minnows or craws. I tried a cheapy minnow trap from wish.com and it was junk and fell apart. 

Wow - I can stop into any of the three local convenience stores and get minnows. Two of them only carry crappie minnows pre-bagged, but the third actually has tanks and three types.

[CountryboyinDC]

45 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

don’t forget helgrammites

Those things are good for drawing blood when they pinch, that's for sure.  At least you can rip a crawdad's pinchers off if they get to rowdy.  I'd rather fish with a spear than a live helgrammite.

[Deleted account]

Present. I like sunfish and shiners, but pretty much anything with fins and scales is fair game.

[billmac]

I don't use live bait much anymore except when fishing with the grandkids, but I think day in and day out, it's hard to beat plain old nightcrawlers.

[fishingtx]

1 hour ago, Smells like fish said:

If we can get them all to post to this thread we can ban them in one fell swoop!!! ?

Great idea!

My only thing against live bait is that it has more of a chance of being swallowed

and hooking the fish to deep

[The Bassman]

Fond memories from my youth. I used to turn over rocks and catch craws one at a time as I waded creeks. July 20,1969 I was walking the front yard with a flashlight picking nightcrawlers when my mom called me in to watch Neil Armstrong step off the LEM.

[Black Hawk Basser]

I've never really targeted bass with live bait, but I've caught several of my biggest bass on cut bait.  Shad and bluegill chunks have yielded me some huge ice-out largemouth while catfishing.

 

We can't use live shad for bait in Iowa.  I might try it if we could do that.  Also, if bait shops around here had shiners, I'd definitely be using them for walleye, and I'm sure they'd catch hella bass too.

[NYWayfarer]

I use live bait mainly for other species. 
 

Nightcrawlers and shiners for Bass occasionally.

[MGF]

Me too...no place convenient to get minnows and, unless arrangements are made in advance, you'll probably only get crappie minnows.

 

Once in a while when we get a year when I'm catching a good number of walleye in the river I'll trap some minnows and use them for walleye. I used a few crawdads many years ago.

 

I've bought minnows to take the grandkids crappie fishing.

 

Life is so much easier without live bait but my feeling aren't hurt a bit if other folks use it.

 

When I was a kid we kept night crawlers. I mostly rigged them like a carolina rig and put a shot of air in them. We also used to tip a marabou jig with a leech. Can't get those around here either.

[Bird]

Oh, lots of memories creeping up. 

Minnow buckets, seining nets, mad Tom's, stringers........then I saw a Rapala that I could throw over and over.

 

[soflabasser]

A truly talented bass fisherman is able to catch big bass with lures and live bait. 

[TnRiver46]

2 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Wow - I can stop into any of the three local convenience stores and get minnows. Two of them only carry crappie minnows pre-bagged, but the third actually has tanks and three types.

But is Walter Matthau working behind the counter? 

2 hours ago, CountryboyinDC said:

Those things are good for drawing blood when they pinch, that's for sure.  At least you can rip a crawdad's pinchers off if they get to rowdy.  I'd rather fish with a spear than a live helgrammite.

You must have some mutant ones up there ! They don’t bother us at all, the craws pack more punch 

[MN Fisher]

Just now, TnRiver46 said:

But is Walter Matthau working behind the counter? 

Ummm - one guy at the third place could be mistaken for Matthau if you squint.

[Mobasser]

When I was much younger, my brother and I fished nightcrawlers for everything.  Here's what we did: take a large fat crawler, use a worm blower or a hypodermic needle and give him a shot of air. Not too much air, just a shot. Put a split shot weight about 12 to 15" on your line, so the crawler floats up off the bottom. Cast him out and reel very slowly, pausing occasionally. The bass love em.

[gim]

Live bait is readily available where I fish. Many varieties of minnows, leeches, night crawlers, and wax worms. The reason I don’t use live bait is two fold: I don’t like trying to keep it “alive,” and I don’t like paying for it every time I want to fish.

 

I do use crappie minnows in the spring for panfish, but other than that, I rarely use any live bait. When I used to walleye fish a lot, we used leeches. That got expensive though.

 

Another reason is the mortality live bait causes. I release all of my bass and almost all of the fish overall that I catch, and live bait has been proven to cause a higher kill rate than artificial lures.

 

Some of the live bait people have listed in this thread isn’t even legal here. You can’t catch sunfish or perch and then use it for live bait here in MN.

[Deephaven]

6 minutes ago, gimruis said:

.... and I don’t like paying for it every time I want to fish.

Yeah, I only paid for my hardbaits.  Sure I have about 10,000 days of live bait fishing into it, but I don't want to buy live bait either.

 

And keeping it alive sucks.  The gas station 1mi from my house has at least 5 varities of minnows, leeches, wax worms, earth worms included colored ones and some other live stuff I've never even looked at.  That being said, I am going to buy some shiners for this weekend.  On a river and when I stop for some lunch I will pull a few minnows for walleye.  I don't ice fish so it'snearly a year since I've had a walleye sandwich.

[gim]

15 minutes ago, Deephaven said:

I don't ice fish

Me neither...but most ice guys do use live bait I think since they often do more waiting than anything.

 

Those shiners aren’t cheap!