catching bait

[Guest]

I fish around saint Cloud and want to catch some suckers for bait but all I've been able to catch are big 20+ inchers. How do I catch suckers that are of a more reasonable size to use for bait? Are there any locations that are better than others for locating them. I just mean on rivers in general. Also, are bullheads legal to use for bait?

[Guest]

one more thing, what is the concensus(sp) on eating cats out of the Mississippi up in saint Cloud? How about the Sauk?

[EBass]

When you find out about smaller suckers let me know. Cut suckers RULE for channels.

I think you can eat one meal per week. Go with the smaller fish for obvious reasons, but you shouldn't glow afterwards.

[Lunker]

Heck, use the 20+ inchers, just cut them up into cubes! I can't seem to catch any suckers here in the cities, when I fish for them, I just manage to catch everything else!

[Lunker]

Oops, I know realize you meant for whole bait. Yes bullheads are legal if they are under 7"

[EBass]

Lunker,
I've done that to with the bigger suckers. I wonder if it's legal? Oh well it works. Last time I had some small suckers and put the whole thing on. Not one bite. Then it died and I was getting bites. I cut it up at that point and bang. Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.

[Guest]

Smaller bait sized suckers will hang tight to dams as the water temp rises. Many days in the heat of the day look for them tight to the wing walls of a dam, in the fist backwater.

Jigs tipped with crawlers work well, so do drop shot rigs on a float.

For Goldeye and Mooneye I found them Angel-eye Jr's in Gold to be the real deal.

Slip float them Angel Eye's, or use a set float. Depths to target are 6" to 3'. Cast them out into the wash below the dam.

The breaks near the fast and slower flows will be key areas. Some days they are right in the white water wash, so check that if they are nowhere else to be found.

Cold fronts tend to push them Goldeye and suckers deep, so a tiny floating jig with a chunk of worm (try a Phelps Floater or Spongy Bug) on a slit-shot rig works.

The mid-day wash bite is common as the temps rise and Shiners seek more O/2 and cooler water. Goldeye and Mooneye feed primarily on tiny shiners in the summer.

Hope this helps.

Ed "Backwater Eddy" Carlson

Backwater Guiding "ED on the RED"

[This message has been edited by Backwater Eddy (edited 06-20-2003).]

[Guest]

thanks so much for all the help. I'll try the dam in ST.Cloud.

[Walleye_GFA]

Cut those big suckers up, they work GREAT, better even than the smaller ones I think...

I fillet the sides off, then cut into strips... Dennis and others take them and cut them down the back to make little fish o's used with cirle hooks... after watching the way the circle hooks worked with cats without having to pull hooks from the gut, Im a convert...

Wally

[DARK30]

I like the smaller creeks for catching bait but I like them alive. Look for bridges over creeks out in the country that have good current and lots of grass along the edges. I use a GC80 Spincasting reel on a stout 6' rod. A small bobber and a white Flu Flu about a foot down tipped with a piece of cutbait. I walk in my waders and work upstream..... This works great for Chubs but the Suckers will more likely be fooled with a small piece of crawler and a slip sinker rig fished on the bottom of the holes.

Angling for your bait is almost as fun as using it!

WET NETS!

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cast,cast,cast,cast......

[Steve Foss]

Over the years, I've found that larger suckers filleted and then cut into strips with the skin left on work as well as, but no better than, the smaller 6-inchers you get in stores.

The smaller ones I just cut in three equal sections. The head section I'll bait all by itself, the same with the middle, but I always bait the tail section with another section, because there's no guts in the tail section.

Suckers up to about 3/4 pound can be cut straight through like salmon steaks you see in stores and a hook (yep, circle hook is best if you can restrain yourself from making a hookset) stuck through the skin on top.

That's the way goldeye are used on the Red. Goldeye up to a couple pounds can be cut this way, but suckers are thicker through the body, and hooking percentage drops off if you chunk suckers bigger than that 3/4 pound or so.

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"Worry less, fish more."
Steve Foss
[email protected]