Sad when you need to use Live bait 2024
flg2010 reply :
This happens every summer (well for the last two I have fished in the Wallkill up in NY):
I am able to catch smallmouth and Bluegill on Jigs, some plastic creature or worm baits, and spoons. This lasts from late march until around mid June. At that point its baby night crawlers only and deeper pools which I hike to. Literally nothing else works.
Then in September I am able to use plastic baits again and some jigs.
I don't have a ton of time so I don't fish anywhere else but ponds that connect to the Wallkill or the Wallkill these days since its close to home. I have asked other folks and most people, as in everyone I have met on the river banks, tell me that's normal. When I fished lake carmel I never used live bait.
I'm catching 2, 3 and even a few 4 lb Smallmouth on live bait.. nothing is even hitting any lures.
Is this normal for bass fishing on some shallow rivers?
N Florida Mike reply :
•You will catch bass on live bait in summer ,fall , winter ,and spring
•You will catch bass on live bait whether its north , south , east , or west .
• You will catch bass on live bait in big rivers ,little rivers,creeks , big lakes ,small lakes , and ponds
I cant explain why you dont catch them on artificials only in the summer.
Sometimes when the bite gets tougher in summer I pull out the live bait , and it generally produces.
But I dont think its sad ....?
slonezp reply :
What difference does it make.? Guys use live bait all the time.
WRB reply :
Anglers think they can always catch bass with lures because they believe bass are like cats and can be teased into striking lures. Bass can be territorial during the spawn, otherwise the goal is to servive by eating the most available prey source. 2" to 2 1/2" live crawdads nose hooke could be more productive than night crawlers.
Live bait fishing can be a learning experience if you harvest the live bait by catching it yourself. Understanding the basses food source is a big step in becoming a more skilled angler.
The closest artificial nightcrawler I found that bass tend to eat is Roboworms oxblood w/light red flake 5 1/2" curl tail worm. Split shot rig this using a light wire size 1 Owner #5133 down shot hook weedless using 6 lb mono line.
Tom
NHBull reply :
There are lots that use it in my neck of the woods and family members often ask why I don't.
When fishing I have 2 mind sets. One is trying to catch numbers or biggies. The second is trying to catch them on specific gear. Taking the easiest route is not that fun, and that is why I doubt I will ever be tournament guy.
ClackerBuzz reply :
likely b/c ur fishing from shore and can't cast to them anymore b/c they moved deep. bass will travel for a juicy bluegill but don't want to expend the energy for a tube/senko etc. eliminate everything else and only fish where the deep water meets shallow so it's within casting distance.
SM are notorious for coming long distances for the right lure. Speed up instead of slowing down. Try fast moving spooks, burning spinnerbaits as fast as you can just subsurface, slashing hard/soft jerkbaits etc.
and buy a kayak.
MassBass reply :
Try fishing at sunset/night and early AM
Bass_Fishing_Socal reply :
why sad? It just another way of fishing. If they only want live bait and if you don't mind then give it to them. I met a guy on tube, he always look for crawdad first to take with him why fishing other lure/plastic. He claimed the biggest catch for him alway from live crawdad.
i might try that sometime when out doing some catfish fishing with my wife.
RB 77 reply :
Sad? Nah... Use what ever they're chewing on and enjoy the moment.
flg2010 reply :
Well things are back to normal, caught this Smallmouth today on a keitech plastic worm California rigged. Drift the plastic and then twitched and retrieved. A little bigger then the ones I was getting on bait. Caught a bunch of smaller ones to.
Not a bad trip.
Oregon Native reply :
Used bait many many years ago....just not for me. To much mess. Anyone ever leave a container of worms in the trunk of a car for a few days and "smell" the reward!!! Anyway...good luck.
Have had some great days on a three inch weightless senko style bait weightless on light line....BUT....not my favorite presentation.
lonnie g reply :
fishing ,never sad for me. do I prefer artificial ,yes. but any type of fishing beats sitting at home on the couch. I happy to see that you are getting out there trying. keep swinging you will eventually hit a home run!
Gundog reply :
Happens to me on the Susquehanna river. Mid summer is always the toughest time. Fish feed mostly at night and if you aren't a nighttime fisherman you just can't seem to get a bite. That's when I start flipping up rocks and catching hellgrammites and crawfish. I've done this since I was a kid. If it works, do it.
Lendiesel22 reply :
On 7/10/2017 at 9:55 PM, Gundog said:Happens to me on the Susquehanna river. Mid summer is always the toughest time. Fish feed mostly at night and if you aren't a nighttime fisherman you just can't seem to get a bite. That's when I start flipping up rocks and catching hellgrammites and crawfish. I've done this since I was a kid. If it works, do it.
Crazy how hard they hit hellgramites isn't It? Catching them is fun too.
Gundog reply :
On 7/11/2017 at 4:38 AM, Lendiesel22 said:Crazy how hard they hit hellgramites isn't It? Catching them is fun too.
Oh those smallies love clippers. They smack them big. Even the little guys get into the action.
Turkey sandwich reply :
Live bait works, man. I would suggest learning to pick your own since it'll teach you a lot about what bass eat in each body of water and a bunch about how to present artificial.
If you're fishing rivers that contain helgramites and madtoms, and picking them is legal, you owe it to yourself give fishing them a shot. They can be incredible.
Lendiesel22 reply :
On 7/11/2017 at 11:33 AM, Gundog said:Oh those smallies love clippers. They smack them big. Even the little guys get into the action.
The 1st fish I ever caught on one was 12" hit it like a truck and went all full acrobatic. Awesome experience at 10 years old.
the reel ess reply :
I really dislike fishing live bait as well. I usually draw the line at the old inline spinner or Beetle Spin. I would however make an exception, like say, a live shiner, for a PB.
david in va reply :
I fish with what ever it takes to catch bass, and sometimes it takes live worms or minnows
slonezp reply :
Maybe the negativity is because many bass fisherman equate live bait with sitting around waiting for the fish to come and bite the live bait. It doesn't have to be that way. One can fish live bait, in most instances, the same way they would do any kind of finesse fishing be it in shallow or deep water. While I don't target bass with live bait, I catch them all the time while panfishing. Even caught my PB of just under 7lbs on a crappie minnow. I've caught plenty of bass up to 4lbs on a 1/2" piece of nightcrawler under a splitshot. Caught a 12lb pike the same way. The pike was apparently feeding on the perch I was targeting, just as the bass are apparently feeding on the bluegills I target. Thing is, I don't sit around waiting for the bite. I hunt for panfish the same as I do for bass. Stick and move...stick and move...I will toss the bait at every dock post, every piece of visible shoreline structure and cover,etc, just as I would if I were bass fishing. It's really no different
Bluebasser86 reply :
I enjoy fishing live crawdads for bass. You fish them very much like a slow moving plastic worm, if they don't get eaten immediately anyways.
Neil McCauley reply :
I used a lot of live bait as a kid. It's all you can really do with limited water access and time to fish. I bet a fly popper would be better though.
Once you get more mobile with a boat and devote more to fishing you forget all about bait. Lures will always be more productive and fun once you have the right ones as options and more areas to use them. I would need dozens of buckets of shiners to cover an average day fishing.
slonezp reply :
On 8/3/2017 at 1:49 PM, Bluebasser86 said:I enjoy fishing live crawdads for bass. You fish them very much like a slow moving plastic worm, if they don't get eaten immediately anyways.
That's the way we used to fish for smallmouth when I was a kid. The state of Wisconsin banned the import of crayfish many many years ago, so bait shops stopped selling them.
moguy1973 reply :
While I'm not a big fan of using live bait, I think it's kind of cheating just to get a fish to bite and I like the challenge of trying to mimic something that's alive with a lure, my buddy will pull out the minnow trap and get some minnows/shiners when the fishing gets slow. And he usually starts catching them.
Darren. reply :
Considering bass eat live forage, it's not unusual or sad.
What's unusual is that we use FAKE bait to catch them!! 
One need look no further than our own @Fish Chris (please
come back, Chris!!) to see just how big a bass you can catch
on live nightcrawlers. He was the master.
HookRz reply :
Live bait doesn't get much press these days cuz crawlers picked from your yard and crawdads caught from a creek don't sponsor any pros or buy adds on the internet.
J Francho reply :
I use what might be considered "natural bait" for trout fishing: roe bags or spawn sacks from harvested hen trout. Many fly fisherman look down on the practice, but I don't care. I don't look down on anyone fishing with live bait, so long as they follow regulations. In NY state, the rules can be particular about where your bait comes from, especially minnows. You must have a receipt from the bait shop and the bait shop must use approved sources for live bait. There's no shame in it, but for me it's more of a control issue. I can't really control where craw goes, or a minnow swims. I like to be the one that controls the action. Much of the stigma trickles down from the top level tournaments that ban the use of live bait. So, as the techniques that the pros develop are shared in press, TV, and the internet, live bait rarely appears. There's more to it than just soaking a softshell crab or night crawler. When I was a kid, we use softshell crabs for smallmouth out in Lake Ontario, and even then it more about location than just drowning baits. You still have to find them. I honestly don't know if I can come up with a more "finesse" method than live bait. So in my opinion, is it sad? Not at all. Enjoy your fishing.
soflabasser reply :
On 8/3/2017 at 9:52 PM, HookRz said:Live bait doesn't get much press these days cuz crawlers picked from your yard and crawdads caught from a creek don't sponsor any pros or buy adds on the internet.
Good answer!
There is nothing wrong in using live bait, as long as its legal in the area you are fishing in and you have a fishing license in the state you are fishing in.Catching your own live bait can teach you a great deal about what bass in the area are eating, what lures colors might work, and even teach you how to present artificial lures better. It takes a considerable amount of skill to be consistent at catching big bass in public waters, whether you fish with live bait, lures, or both. In the end of the day you still have to locate the big bass and convince it to bite, which can be a challenge regardless how skilled a bass fisherman is. Many bass fishermen are good at some particular bass techniques( frog, spinnerbait, senko, etc), but you will not meet too many that are well rounded in both artificial lure and live bait fishing!
soflabasser reply :
On 7/9/2017 at 3:56 AM, ClackerBuzz said:SM are notorious for coming long distances for the right lure. Speed up instead of slowing down. Try fast moving spooks, burning spinnerbaits as fast as you can just subsurface, slashing hard/soft jerkbaits
A couple months ago I caught my first couple smallmouth bass and noticed what you said. The ones I caught where caught on small crankbaits and I fished at a faster pace that I usually use for largemouth bass. Smallmouth bass fishing reminds me of peacock bass fishing and I would assume that a good smallmouth bass fishermen would quickly adapt to peacock bass fishing if they where to travel and fish for them.
slonezp reply :
On 8/3/2017 at 10:22 PM, J Francho said:I use what might be considered "natural bait" for trout fishing: roe bags or spawn sacks from harvested hen trout. Many fly fisherman look down on the practice, but I don't care.
Are those the same fly fishermen using salmon egg imitation flies? Around these parts, guys who can't get or cant afford spawn use red Play Dough.
J Francho reply :
On 8/4/2017 at 9:32 PM, slonezp said:Are those the same fly fishermen using salmon egg imitation flies? Around these parts, guys who can't get or cant afford spawn use red Play Dough.
I don't know, but they look like fashion models for LL Bean. They seem to do an awful lot of false casting, and no real catching.
roadwarrior reply :
On 8/4/2017 at 4:53 AM, soflabasser said:There is nothing wrong in using live bait...
HookRz reply :
Live bait is bad Trolling is worse.
Trolling live bait bait is the work of the devil.
Just ask the tackle manufacturers, or the fish.
soflabasser reply :
On 8/4/2017 at 9:34 PM, J Francho said:
I don't know, but they look like fashion models for LL Bean. They seem to do an awful lot of false casting, and no real catching.
LOL
Dwight Hottle reply :
On 8/4/2017 at 5:03 AM, soflabasser said:
A couple months ago I caught my first couple smallmouth bass and noticed what you said. The ones I caught where caught on small crankbaits and I fished at a faster pace that I usually use for largemouth bass. Smallmouth bass fishing reminds me of peacock bass fishing and I would assume that a good smallmouth bass fishermen would quickly adapt to peacock bass fishing if they where to travel and fish for them.
There is hope for me yet.
bigbill reply :
I started out bass fishing with livebait. It was costing me $50 a week. I started using both livebait and lures, two rod setups. The lures started out fishing the livebait as I learned the patterns and presentations. I was fishing five to six times a week in the beginning. Then I started fishing everyday for three months straight till I got burned out.
beaware of using two rod setups. I almost lost the livebait setup when a 3lber tried to pull it in the water.
Bass_Fishing_Socal reply :
Just this morning, I stopped by my lake and saw an old couple fishing for Shad. I talked to them abit and they said, they alway use shad for everything from catfish to crappies to bass. They said they've been catching bass everyday 10-15 bass a day up to 4-5lbs. The biggest they caught was 12lbs. In the mean time, I've been catching bass too but most of them were 5-6" dinks, go figure.
Another thing, the guys said, bass fishermen are now into those of fishing tournament world with fancy lures. Fishing is fishing doesn't matter sport or recreation so why matter what type of bait to use. He even mentioned that he talked to some biologists and claimed that our lake is over populated with bass but he is afraid to talk to all bass fishingmen about keeping bass under 2-3 lbs.
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