There have been times when the bass, or any type fish for that matter, just don’t want to cooperate and you just cant seem to get then to bite. Or when you take children out and they need to catch fish to get them interested in the sport but for some reason or another the artificial stuff just aint working, what’s a person to do.
Today I’m going to talk about fishing with live bait. Because this subject can be rather lengthy so I’ll be making this topic in 2 separate posts.
Now, some may consider using live bait unethical or cheating but I have to admit there are times when I’ve broke down and fished with live bait. No, NEVER during a tournament. The times that I reverted to live bait was when I would take someone out who didn’t have the patience or skill that are required when the bass just refuse to cooperate. Times that come to mind are when I take a child out, or on a guided trip to assure that they catch fish when the conditions are tough.
There are a few rules that I follow when it comes to fishing with live bait. First, if possible use circle hooks. These hooks are very effective in the sense that they come around easily when the fish turns with the bait and tends to hook the fish in the corner of the mouth.
The times that I revert to using live bait I always collapse the barb down with a pair of pliers, actually I use my leatherman tool, making the hook barbless. This helps tremendously in the successful removal of the hook. The only down side of doing this is that you must make sure you keep pressure on the fish at all times because the hook will come out allot easier with any slack in the line
Don’t wait forever to set the hook, remember your using live bait and the fish will hold onto it and eat it so you don’t want to wait until they have digested it and its ready to be pooped out. When you feel the hit or see your line moving off, reel down, feel the pressure and set the hook.
There will be times when using live bait that you will not be able to avoid them swallowing it and you end up hooking them deep. This is when the barbless hooks really shine because they are very easy to extract. There will be times when you cant get the hook out without causing some major damage to the fish. When this happens the old rule used to be that you wanted to cut your line as close to the hook as possible. New studies show that if you leave 8-12 inches of line from the hook it will increase the mortality rate. This has to do with after the hook rusts the fish can use the line to rub against structure and dislodge it.
If you deep hook a fish and he is bleeding profusely and you attempt you release him and he does not seem to respond very well place him in your livewell for a while with the pump running to oxygenate him and check on him later. I put “Please Release Me”, an additive that calms the fish and promotes healing in my livewell to help. If he still looks bad when you check on him then harvest him because chances are he wont make it.
A bass swallowing a bait does not only happen with live bait. Allot of the hand poured baits we use out in the west are very soft and scent and salt impregnated so they not only feel real but they taste real as well.
Some baits to use for bass are crayfish, aka crawdads, crawfish and mud bugs. Other choice’s are live shad, minnows, water dogs, aka salamanders and of course earth worms.
For other fish there are crickets and dillies which are baby night crawlers. I’m sure there are other baits but the above mentioned ones are the only ones I have used.
Now I’ll talk a little about rigging different live baits. Today’s post will cover the Crawfish. I like to use a size 4, 6 or 8 bait holder hook. Size of the hook of course depends on the size of the craw. Another trick it to take the hook and attach some fine flexible wire close to the eye of the hook and extend it past the point. This will make your presentation weedless.
If you are purchasing crawdads at the local bait shop look for the ones that are greenish in color. They are the soft shell ones that are getting ready to shed their shell and the bass love them. I prefer the ones that are about 2-3 inches long myself. If you are forced to buy the bigger ones I like to pinch one of the claws off so they don’t seem as intimidating to the bass when he goes to eat it.
You can save yourself some money if you catch your own. There are several ways to go about catching them. I remember back as a kid we would just stick our hands under rocks and feel around until the crawdad grabbed ya, sometimes it hurt pretty bad but when they grabbed you just reach around and grab him back.
As I aged I found that it was less painful to get a crawdad trap, place some meat inside, tie a rope onto it toss it out and check it a little later. Another way is to tie a piece of bacon onto your line, letting it hang, attach a small weight, toss it out, let it sink to the bottom and slowly reel it back in. When doing this you can feel the crawdads grab onto the bacon as you slowly move it. When you get it to the top of the water you can either place a net under them or I found that if you slowly lift them out of the water they will hold onto the bacon.
The size of the craw is important, at least as far as I’m concerned. I have found that one’s right at 3 inches seem to produce best. If you find some of the green soft shell ones in the 3 inch youve struck gold, bass LOVE THEM! If you can only find the monster size ones, 5-8 inches, dont fret, they will still work. One trick with the big ones is to remove one of the claws to not make him look as “Bad” to the bass, maybe it does not really help but think about it from a bass prospective.
Your going out for dinner, swimming along and you see your lobster dinner walking along the bottom and think YUM, lets check it out. You make your way over and this lobster turns and faces you with his claws raised in a defensive posture. “Wow, those claws look intimidating, they just might hurt, how hungry am I” Now this of course is just my opinion but same senerio only Mr. Lobster only has one claw, “You aint so bad, come here you” OK Mike, back to human form, ha!
You can tail hook them, go in through the bottom and out the top of the tail, just be careful to watch for the vein in the middle of the tail. If you run your hook through the vein the craw will not be very active and will not live all that long. You can also hook them through the beak, between the eyes. Here again be very careful because if you pierce the brain you will be throwing a dead crawdad.
I prefer to use no weight or at the most a small split shot, again without the “ears” I have mentioned several times before. If I do use the weight I’ll place it 6-8 inches from the craw. You want your bait to fall as naturally as possible. When you cast do not whip or snap cast it. Make a smooth cast. If you don’t then you just might separate the tail from the body.
After you make your cast feed the line out so the bait does not pendulum back towards you. This will make for a more natural presentation. Move your bait very, very slowly. Remember, your trying to allow the craw to act as natural as possible. The only reason you move it at all is to keep him from crawling under a rock. If your craw gets nervous like he is trying to swim off erratically chances are he is feeling threatened by a fish. When you feel this play out some line and be ready to set the hook when you feel pressure.
Be sure to check back soon when I’ll discuss how to fish the other live baits I mentioned.
Thanks for visiting my site. Be sure to tell all of your fishing buddies and come back soon!
Until Next Time, Good Luck and Tight Lines To Ya!
