Crawlers

[Mobasser]

I have an older friend who bought a starter kit to raise nightcrawlers this year, in early spring.                                                           These have turned out to be fat, thick crawlers, some reaching 4" long. He's caught a good number of bass over this summer on them.                                       Here's his rigging methods: over deeper water, he hooks the crawler once near the front. A splitshot is placed 15' up the line. The retrieve is a slow, stitching style, moving the crawler along inches at a time. He also hooks his finger under his line as part of the retrieve. This has worked well over humps channel bends etc.                 The second style involves a worm blower, again hooking the crawler once, and adding a splitshot on the line. Injecting a shot of air in the crawler makes them float off the bottom, and wiggle around. Any bass that's nearby will find this hard to resist.                                                              Lastly, he tips marabou jigs with a 1/4" piece of crawler, as kind of a float and fly rig for LM bass. The floats are weighted, and made by Comal tackle. The jigs are 1/8 oz, and made with a good quality hook, sized for bass.                                               On the bottom crawler rigs, he pinches down the hook barb slightly, which helps with unhooking a bass.                                       His main thing with this is to set the hook quickly after any sign of a strike. Doing this helps to hook the bass in the outer part of the mouth, making for an easy unhooking job.                                               I've heard and read all the negatives about live bait for bass. Many bass anglers would never consider using it now, but I think live bait has its own set of skills also.                                                   Fishing a minnow, a live crawfish, or in this case, a big nightcrawler has accounted for scores of bass over the years, and some big ones too.                           Nightcrawlers( especially raising them yourself) are inexpensive, and, for fisherman who can't afford many lures, can be a good way to go.                                I fish with lures 99% of the time. But after seeing the results my friends had with his live bait, I may take to stitching a big crawler along the bottom myself, especially on the tough days.                     Live bait isn't just for beginners, and, it could be one more thing to add to your skills, and help you catch more bass.             At the end of the day, that's our ultimate goal.

[Tennessee Boy]

I have dreams of creating an aquaponics green house in my retirement.  You can google it for all the detail.  Briefly,  it involves a tank full of fish,  plants and worms in gravel, and pumps to circulate the water between the fish tank and the gravel bed with the plants.  You feed the fish,  they produce waste,  the plants feed on the waste and filter the water,  and the worms clean up any leftover plant materials.   All this produces vegetable to eat,  worms to fish with,  and fish to eat or use for bait.  

[WRB]

Fish Chris a past BR member was a live crawler trophy bass angler using light line finesse tactics. Chris tail hooked the crawlers using 4 lb to 6 lb line.

I fished live 6”-8” Canadian crawlers and live crawdads fly lined ( no weight) and nose hooked for a decade. Caught about 100 DD bass in the San Diego lakes when FLMB were introduced. Live bait was 90% more effective then artificial lures for the 1st generation FLMB.

Live bait fishing takes skill to do it right. Today we have light wire circle hooks to eliminate gut hooking.

Tom

PS, Bill Murphy’s In Pursuit of Giant Bass has a few chapters on how to present live bait. 

[Team9nine]

[TnRiver46]

I love using night crawlers and other live bait for bass. Yes it takes skill as some have posted above. The only negative is the jack wads that have to shun the tactics as well as the fishermen that use them. There’s lot of them out there, even a few on this forum

[Mobasser]

2 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

Good book. I took a trip to Wisconsin a few years back. Many tackle shops carried a big selection of live bait, much more than here in Missouri. This may have been for walleye guys, but, it seemed like crawlers were always on the menu, and probably are used by many bass anglers also.

[Skunkmaster-k]

In the summer you can’t beat a night crawler on a 1/4 oz jig head suspended 3’ off the bottom , fishing main lake humps at night for walleye. 

[Team9nine]

Super popular up north. Binkelman popularized it and laid the groundwork with his 1966 book, “Nightcrawler Secrets.” Bill was out of Wisconsin, and they could get by with crawlers on their lower productivity waters. Further south, we have tons of catfish, carp, bluegills and yellow bass in our highly productive (eutrophic) waters that will eat you alive trying to use a whole crawler for bait for larger predator species. 

[Spankey]

You’ll never hear me bad mouth anyone for what they use. To each his own. I’ll encourage someone to try to use an artificial who is a live baiter. Try to steer them in the right direction with using it. The same as I’d be receptive to a live baiter telling/showing me how to properly fish live bait. 
 

I honestly would not know how to fish for bass with it. And feel I’d be catching panfish only with it. 

[Team9nine]

Oops - thought it would merge replies.

[Mobasser]

5 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

Super popular up north. Binkelman popularized it and laid the groundwork with his 1966 book, “Nightcrawler Secrets.” Bill was out of Wisconsin, and they could get by with crawlers on their lower productivity waters. Further south, we have tons of catfish, carp, bluegills and yellow bass in our highly productive (eutrophic) waters that will eat you alive trying to use a whole crawler fir bait for larger predator species. 

Here in Missouri, most shops sell minnows and crawlers. That's usually all. Up north I saw crawlers and minnows, as well as leaches, crawfish, riverworms, etc. I do agree panfish can be a problem, as well as carp. But in the right location they work great for bass. I think any fish will take a pop at a crawler. 

[scaleface]

I tried Carolina rigging crawlers and shad  just inching  them along slowly . Only thing I caught were channel cats .

[the reel ess]

I would expect the bream to destroy every crawler I cast. They bite the claws on my jig trailers, sometimes taking them off. Vicious critters, they'd be dangerous of they had some size.

[Mobasser]

4 minutes ago, scaleface said:

I tried Carolina rigging crawlers and shad  just inching  them along slowly . Only thing I caught were channel cats .

In the lakes we fish, the edges are rimmed with moss. Bluegill are always hanging around these edges, and fishing a live nightcrawlers hasn't been good. The gills tear them up, before anything else can get them.                     We found a hump offshore that was made when they dug this lake( a qaurry). He's caught some good bass fishing on either side of this spot by scratching his crawlers. The gills leave it alone.

2 minutes ago, the reel ess said:

I would expect the bream to destroy every crawler I cast. They bite the claws on my jig trailers, sometimes taking them off. Vicious critters, they'd be dangerous of they had some size.

Yea, pesky little dudes. They make it a habit to peck at the tails of my plastic worms also.

[LrgmouthShad]

47 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

The only negative is the jack wads that have to shun the tactics as well as the fishermen that use them

Murphy was mentioned a couple times in this thread, looks like. Somewhere in his book he mentions that if you are not willing to use live bait, you are letting your pride/stubbornness get in the way of you experiencing the full extent of this sport. He’s right on, IMO. Live bait does not always work better than artificial. I experienced this over the summer between using live bluegill and artficials. 
 

Letting what’s popular and what the market wants you to think is acceptable to use in this sport influence what you are willing to use is not free thinking. Just the opposite

 

Yeah I need to try some night crawlers too ?

[Choporoz]

Feeding the sunnies and cats would be my concern,  as well.   The panfish in our lake are extraordinarily skilled at worm removal.   When I take the granddaughter down to the dock, we can go through a dozen red worms before coming close to hooking up.

[scaleface]

  A cannister of night crawlers in the cooler means one or two less beers .

[Finessegenics]

46 minutes ago, Skunkmaster-k said:

In the summer you can’t beat a night crawler on a 1/4 oz jig head suspended 3’ off the bottom , fishing main lake humps at night for walleye. 

I prefer having them on bottom, drifting with the wind. No better walleye tactic! 

[Spankey]

29 minutes ago, the reel ess said:

I would expect the bream to destroy every crawler I cast. They bite the claws on my jig trailers, sometimes taking them off. Vicious critters, they'd be dangerous of they had some size.

Curly tail and straight tail worms they’ll cut my tails right off. Same with my craws. Orange or chartreuse tipped that’s even worse. Hit hard also. 
 

Saturday when I was out I was getting hits and bangs while throwing a SK 3XD.  Thought for sure they were bass, figured a school of small bass. Was all heck bent of fishing this small cove. I figured a bunch of bluegills would be back in there and bass would chase them around. Bluegills slamming the 3XD. Had a handful of hookup of them. It was crazy. Had mouth, fin and some side hooking of them. They didn’t like the 3XD for sure. (I took a few pics, I’ll try to post).

 

Switched to soft plastics and got a couple of runts. 
 

Anyway would have a heck of a time getting a live crawler to a bass through the bluegills. Maybe if they were pulled back into deeper water. 

[WRB]

Tournament bass fishing has killed live bait and trolling for most skilled bass anglers.

I stopped using live for bass in the early 70’s simply because my stance against using live bait during the spawn cycle was killing too many big bass.

What I call the tin boat fleet would have have stringers of big bass floating belly up like volley balls. 

Our SoCal lakes are small, most less then 3 miles long and the pressure put on spawning bass is unbelievable. Guides with clients, the tin fleet, club tournaments, world record bass million dollar reward was more then the big bass population could withstand. So I decided to use artificial lures only the past 45+ years.  

Tom

[Mobasser]

In many ways, it seems like tactics used by walleye anglers apply to bait fishing for bass. My wife's relatives in Wisconsin always take some live bait on every fishing trip.  They're big walleye guys, but won't turn down a mixed bag of fish also. They've caught many nice smallmouth, big bream, and walleyes. A jig and crawler is they're #1 year around. This may be a regional thing also. It seems live bait is more popular up north? 

Around my area( north central Mo) if you buy a dozen crawlers folks just assume your going for panfish or catfish. Not many serious bass anglers consider them any good. My friend proved this wrong this summer. He caught numbers and some nice 4lb bass as well. I think it's all about where your fishing them, slowing down, and rigging them the right way.

And, he insist on using fresh, lively crawlers only. 

I would imagine that a Lindy Rig, could be deadly on bass in certain locale.

[WRB]

My in-laws were from MN and summer at Lake of the Woods, Ontario Canada. My in-laws were walleye and lake trout fisherman, bass , Pike and Musky were not considered worth eating. Fishing for food they used live minnows on a jig or slow trolled a snagless sally crawlers rig. Catch & Release wasn’t in their vocabulary. Shore lunch was tradition.

I introduced my father in-law to using a Abu 2500C with with mono line and light weight graphite rod, soft plastic grubs and worms and he loved it. C & R was beyond comprehension for walleye and trout.

Tom

[bowhunter63]

2 hours ago, Team9nine said:

That was the live bait manual back in the day. It was and still is a deadly system 

[Bass Rutten]

1 hour ago, the reel ess said:

I would expect the bream to destroy every crawler I cast. They bite the claws on my jig trailers, sometimes taking them off. Vicious critters, they'd be dangerous of they had some size.

If they grew to double digits we’d all be on BreamRescource.com ?

[DitchPanda]

My issue with live bait is keeping it alive and like others have said being pestered by everything that swims. Also I appreciate the challenge that lures bring. That said there is no doubt that live bait takes a skill set, is extremely effective and I wouldn't look down on somebody for using it.