Live Bait or Plastic?

[Mike Stark]

which is better...live bait or plastics??? does gulp work just as well as the real deal? any baits that are a must for a ice fishermans tackle box???

[Agronomist_at_IA]

There is more experienced people then me that have used plastics and love them, some even swear by them. With what I've seen, if you work the plastics just right you don't need live bait. If your not the best with pounding the plastics to get the fish to bite, live bait is hard to beat and doesn't seem to take near the effort to get the fish to bite. I like to keep some of the fake plastics on had just in case we run out of live (Like someone spilling the bait down the hole). Usually we put crappie nibbles on with the live bait to help get some smell into the water.

[hanson]

I think I read in a few of your other posts 'Mstark83' that you were pretty new to ice fishing. Based on that idea alone, I would suggest sticking with live bait until you've had some good success with live.

I'm not sure how to break it down but I probably fish with bait 50% of the time, and plastics 50% of the time. When I'm fishing plastics, a percentage of that fishing is plastic & bait until you figure out what the fish want, then adjust.

I would say nearly all of my plastic fishing is jigging (no bobber). I use my jigging/pounding/swimming motions to add life to the plastic. Its taken much trial and error to learn what kind of motions the fish respond to.

[Borch]

Different guys will have different views on the live versus plastics topic. Both will catch fish when utilized correctly. Over the past several years I have used live bait less and less especially fishing panfish. Last winter for panfish I'd estimate when using just one rod I was using plastics or jigging cranks without bait more than 90% of the time. I'm usually jigging these plastics. The plus is that you have control over the bait's movements with plastic. I haven't used Gulp ice fishing much. Powerbait, little atom, custum jigs and spins, lindy, etc. With live bait like minnows the bait itself does a lot of the work. If I use a second rod it would always have a lively minnow on it. It's a nice one, two punch.

[Hardwaterjigin]

I like to use live bait personally...just not live. Whenever I buy shiners or redtails during the summer and have some left over at the end of the outing-live or dead-I throw'em into a sandwich bag and into the freezer they go--This is a good way to get the most bang for your buck and if you're jigging what's the difference-the walleyes don't seem to mind. Also, up north you can buy 'em frozen and it is quite a lot cheaper. I recomend this method if jigging or in current.