I am new here, so if this has already been thrown out there don't get too stressed.
I am curious to see peoples opinions when comes to fishing with Live Bait vs Artificial Bait.
I have been fishing for about 31 years now and grew up on live bait. Within the last 8 years or so I have also fished with artificial bait and came to start loving those too. It was pretty nice catching fish, unhook them, and toss your line right back in! So now I fish with both, I guess it just all depends on what I'm fishing for and which one is getting the most bites at the time.
So I just wanted to see what some of your opinions are out there and which is your favorites.
Also, if possible tell the reason why you lean one way or the other.
Woody Wood
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Well, most people on here will shut you down about live bait, as will I.
Nothing besides Catfish and Sunnies should natural or live bait.
Live bait just about guarantees a high rate of fish mortality because most fish inhale the live stuff, and by the time you see the bobber go down, the worm is down its throat.
I 100% undoubtedly always use artificial bait, except when I fish for Catfish, or sometimes picky trout. I believe it has been scientifically proven the Bass hit artificial more than live bait (Don't hold me to this lol)
Using any type of Senko , Texas rigged, will give the best result for Bass.
Any more questions? Feel free to ask
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I use mostly artificial baits when fishing sweet water and some on the salt. Salt water fish up here respond alot better with some live bait or pieces of bait. If your targeting fish to eat use what ever they want that day. I'll use shinners when trout fishing in 20' of water, but lures when trolling on top. Bass are always artificial baits. It does save on bait costs.
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illuse mostly artificial..on every thing except panfish..and some of your smaller trout streams...one thing i dont get is most people think if you use live bait its gotto be under a bobber..this is very seldom the case..
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I almost always use artificial lures for anything other than bluegills and catfish and then I usually only use nightcrawlers or crickets for live bait. In my area of Arkansas it's a 45 minute drive to get live minnows so we don't do that very often.
For cat fishing I make my own baits, Usually rotten Garlic Dogs, I take jumbo hotdogs and cut them into 1 inch strips and put them in a ziplock bag then pour a whole container of Garlic Salt in the bag and shake it up, then I put it on the back porch for two days and then freeze it and use it over and over just refreezing it everytime I get home from a trip. I catch more Cat Fish with this bait than any store bought bait I have found or even Night Crawlers.
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we used fresh water clams for cats alot..back in the day...we break them open then cut the meat into pcs..worked good..
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[quote lurtch]we used fresh water clams for cats alot..back in the day...we break them open then cut the meat into pcs..worked good..[/quote]
Yea they work great here in Arkansas too, but now there is a ban on using them as bait or even picking up some species of freshwater clan in ARK....
We don't the different species so we leave that alone now but at a local river years ago that's what we caught the majority of our huge blues on.
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always did make a fun day wading the river finding clams in the day and cat fishing that nite..ive only ever cought 1 blue..mostly channels..not very big but good eating..you ever tried eatin the clams..i didnt dare..
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