LivE baiT

[himjunkie13]

hey, i use a lot of live bait, i tip jigs with it and sometimes fish it alone. i mostly fish for 'gills and realize there are times when you have to fish a lure untipped, but when they're hitting they're hitting rite?

So, my question is, what do you guys use? any great tips or timing ideas?

[hanson]

Live bait for bluegills?

I tip jigs with Eurolarvae (spikes) or waxworms all the time. You'll find out in a hurry if you'll be able to fish with just plastic/no bait, but I always start with some kind of live bait on my jig.

[deepportage01]

Hi himjunkie, I will make the switch from live bait to plastic when it takes longer to bait the hook and get it back down there. In other words if they are bighting like crazy and you are spending more time baiting your hook when you could be catching fish that's when I make the switch to plastic

my fav worm to use in the winter is those mouses they look like a grub with a tail? but they can be hard to find in some areas but man do they work good on little jigs

[Matt Johnson]

If using bait, I'll use euro larva or wax worms, more than likely just euro larva though. I haven't used a crappie minnow for panfish in probably 3-4 years now, I don't feel the need.

About half my fishing, if not more, is done without live-bait. Finicky gills can provide a different dimension, but crappies can usually be coaxed into biting without live-bait...

[Coach1310]

My fishing parnter and I used the month of January last year as an experiment. One of us would use eurolarve and the other plastics. We got out 7 times in the month and I was extremely surprised with the results. I always thought eurolarve was hard to beat, but plastics out fished it, overall about 2.5-1 I think it had a lot to do with always wasting time baiting up. We were fishing mostly gills and crappies. The only downfall to the plastics was they produced less keepers then did the eurolarve!

[Moose]

Matt, What do you mean by "coaxing a Cappie in with plastic" are you jigging with the rod, or are you adding an attractant, or are you using one of the plastics that have the the atractant already in it? I'm just couriuos because I've always used live bait but get sick of trying to keep it alive so if I could switch to plastic with the same success I would.

[Matt Johnson]

Just different jigging sequences and pauses that trigger the crappies into biting. Oftentimes I can get away with using a Size 6 Ratso or a Nuggie from Little-Atom without any bait and still entice the fish into striking the jig. Plastics give off a nice appeal and can work very well in place of live-bait. It also helps when running and gunning from hole to hole and not worrying about re-baiting...

[Deitz Dittrich]

As matt states, there are advatages to each..bait and plastics. You can give off far more vibration with plastics, plastics have much better action and you can do a lot more with color. Bait obviously has scent advatages. I think its important to have both with you if you plan on being successfull.