Crawdad meat vs. whole live crawdad ?

[kyron4]

I have a creek by the house with all the 'dads I could ever want. When I rig them whole and alive they tend to cralw under rocks and hang me up. I know fresh stripped tail meat is like candy to about every fish that swims; but does it make a difference to bass ? Would a live 'dad attract more strikes than a chuck on meat ? -Thanks

[BassnMan Mike]

I have a creek by the house with all the 'dads I could ever want.

Would a live 'dad attract more strikes than a chuck on meat ? -Thanks

Yes, a live craw will attract more bass, however in my opinion if you have all the craws you could ever use, why not catch a mess and cook them up? They sure are tasty when you cook em in Zatarans crab boil!

[Bass_Akwards]

Hell yea it makes a difference to bass.  live Crayfish are a big bass KILLER!  They work in the toughest of fishing conditions.  Cold muddy water. Clear water.  After a cold front.  You name it.

If you have some really active crayfish where the thing is just pulling and yanking your line all the time under water, that's a great trigger for the bass.  The crayfish gets that defensive and stressed posture going and the big mama bass react and bite..

Make sure to not throw the crayfish for to long.  If it gets tired it won't be as good of a  bait as a lively one.

Also try both tail hooking them and beak hooking them to see if one doesn't get hung up as much.

What's sweet about beak hooking is it doesn't effect the way the crayfish swims as they use their tails to get around and what's even cooler is you can walk the crayfish along the bottom by beak hooking.

When their beak hooked and you bring them toward an area where they dont want to go, like an area with lots of preditors present, or a nice juicy 12 pound bass is hanging around, they start resisting and going nuts by kicking and wiggling and struggling.  That's when you know there's bass somewhere close, and thats when your adrenaline kicks in, and THAT'S why I fish in the first place.  The more adrenaline the better.

[jb7725]

use a live one much better for bass

[WRB]

When I fished with live crawdads, over 30 years ago, the trick was to remove the claw arms and nose* hook the crawdad. Contrary to the popular advertised notion that bass like crawdads with big claws, the opposite is true. The fact is bass; LMB, SM and Spotted, prefer the crawdads without big claws, because the claws can harm the basses gills.

To keep a crawdad from crawling under rocks and bushed, keep control of it, like a dog on a leash and don't let have a lot of slack line.

To declaw a crawdad you use needle node pliers and pick up the crawdad by it's claw arm and it will usually drop the arm off to get away. Don't cut off the arms, the hole allows body fluids to leak out and the crawdads dies quickly.

You want the crawdad as lively as often as possible, when it starts kicking, that means a bass is about to strike.

WRB

* The shell extends beyond the eyes like a ball cap bill and carefully work the hook point through the shell in front of the eyes. This doesn't harm the crawdad, they may pinch you however.

[owl]

Instead of running the craw through with a hook why not strap

it to a double hook from a dissected plastic frog using a small zip tie  ?

Stabbing it with a hook will surely weaken  it.

[Luke at Gouldsboro]

A live crawdad has movement, as opposed to a piece of meat, the live crawdad is much more appealing to bass

[Big Bait Fishing]

Hell yea it makes a difference to bass. live Crayfish are a big bass KILLER! They work in the toughest of fishing conditions. Cold muddy water. Clear water. After a cold front. You name it.

If you have some really active crayfish where the thing is just pulling and yanking your line all the time under water, that's a great trigger for the bass. The crayfish gets that defensive and stressed posture going and the big mama bass react and bite..

Make sure to not throw the crayfish for to long. If it gets tired it won't be as good of a bait as a lively one.

Also try both tail hooking them and beak hooking them to see if one doesn't get hung up as much.

What's sweet about beak hooking is it doesn't effect the way the crayfish swims as they use their tails to get around and what's even cooler is you can walk the crayfish along the bottom by beak hooking.

When their beak hooked and you bring them toward an area where they dont want to go, like an area with lots of preditors present, or a nice juicy 12 pound bass is hanging around, they start resisting and going nuts by kicking and wiggling and struggling. That's when you know there's bass somewhere close, and thats when your adrenaline kicks in, and THAT'S why I fish in the first place. The more adrenaline the better.

you can actually feel them shaking !!!  ;D

[BassThumb]

I used to fish live craws all the time for SMB. I personally wouldn't eat them from a local creek though. It may be filled with street runoff, who knows?

I would sometimes remove both claws, and hook them thru the tail, upside down. But I believe I caught better fish on average with a craw with claws. The clawless craws seemed to attract more dinks. I'm sure the smaller profile affected that, or maybe dinks are scared of claws. Just like a minnow rigged upside down, the craw will basically freak out trying to right itself. The usually get hit before they reach the bottom.

Usually I would leave the claws on and just hook them thru the tail with a circle hook. Yes, they'll snag you up if if let them roam, but if you keep twitching them they won't be able to find a hole to crawl into. Nose hooking hooks well too, but the craws are more likely to fly off during the cast if you do that.

[grimlin]

I wish i knew how to get a hold of Fish Chris...He used to have a rigging instructions on his site at trophy bass only.But the site seems to be taken down of all the information and now is just loaded with some nice outdoor photography.

I'm kicking myself in the head for not saving that information he had on that site.

[Sam]

We cook and eat them.

Do not use them for bait.

Nothing better than a mess of boiled crawfish and a Barq's.        

[Sam]

By the way, if you fish the crawfish meat (cooked) you will clobber the bream and bluegills.

Take it from me as I know.

It is a lot of fun fishing and you will pull up a bream or bluegill on every cast.

Great way to introduce a kid to fishing. 

[BrandonD]

live bait usually always outfishes dead bait except catfishing lol