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So I just went down to the kitchen to make something to eat and noticed the leftovers from the annual Easter sugar orgy. The half-dry Peeps caught my eye and I wondered if they would make good bait, maybe for catfish? Anybody tried it? That got me to thinking about the odd things I've used for bait. When I was a youngster I got the urge to go fish in the creek/irrigation ditch that was the eastern border of our farm. The earth was baked as hard as a rock and so I couldn't dig any worms. So I found a piece of bologna in the fridge, ripped a strip off that and tried it. I caught one of the largest trout I've ever gotten with it.
So what strange baits have you all used?
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Scone dough works great at community ponds .Hot dogs and little smokies also work well at times.
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Hi Craig,
I used a piece of gum once. No takers tho.
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My brother caught a long nose gar on gum while fishing the White River in Arkansas in 1960. Most recently though, I use pickled herring in wine sauce to fish for sturgeon all the time. It seldom fails.
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Good fishing to all. Hue
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As a young kid with my Dad we ran out of red salmon eggs. That's all they would take. Pulled off chunks of his favorite treat, cinnamon bears. Rolled them into balls. It worked so, so. It was Trial Lake,in the Uintahs
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We use to mix hamburger with velveeta cheese, when someone would ask what we were using we would kindly reply cheeseburgers. Of course they would scowl at us, not believing us. But it worked great, haven't tried it since the early 80's.
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This is a true story. Many years ago I made a quick run up to Silver Lake at Brighton. I started to fish where the water leaves the lake. It is more like a river there and there was a deep hole. I already had an old double Renegade on my line, so I tried that just for kicks. I started catching some fish and letting them go. After a few fish like that, the fly was in tatters. But it was still catching fish until finally about all that was left on the hook was a remnant of the peacock herl from the fly. At that point it was obvious the fish were stacked in that hole like a fish hatchery. So I thought I would have some fun. I scrounged around on the ground and found a cigarette butt, and put it on the hook. By golly I caught a fish with it, no kidding. But in the process I lost the cigarette butt. I looked around and found another, and caught a fish with it. It wasn't long until I was out of cigarette butts. By now I was up to probably 10 fish that I had caught and released. Then I found a piece of tinfoil off of a piece of candy. That caught fish as well. But I soon lost it too. Then I found a twist tie off of bread sack, and twisted it around the bend of the hook, and got several more with it. I looked up and saw someone from the DWR coming. My first thought was, oh no, I am in trouble. But by the time the guy walked over to me I couldn't think of anything I would be in trouble about. I don't think there are any laws against using cigarette butts, tinfoil, or twist ties for bait. It turns out it wasn't an enforcement officer, it was just someone doing a survey. He asked me how many fish I caught and I told him about 25, but that I had released them all unharmed. He said oh man, that's pretty good, what were you using for bait? I will admit that it was really embarrassing to tell him what I had been using. But that is a true story.
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Banana slug. It's been almost 30 years now, we were camping near the mouth of the Columbia river, planning to take a charter boat out for salmon the next day. I was fishing off the north jetti of the Columbia, and ran out of sardines. Found a huge banana slug, and after a wrestle with slime to get it on the hook, cast it in. Very soon after I had a very large fish on. Broke off the 30lb line.
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Macaroni Salad.
Was floating in a cove at Lake Powell years ago eating lunch. One of us dropped their plate in the boat and spilled macaroni salad on the boat floor. I scooped it up and threw it overboard. In the clear water you could see it sinking when all of the sudden it was attacked and started disappearing. Soon we were all baited up with macaroni bits from the salad and to make a long story short had a great shore dinner of Bluegill, Crappie and potato salad. Kept the rest of the macaroni for bait.
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[#0000FF]Quite a few years ago (too many) I was fishing on Irvine Lake in southern Cal. My fishing buddy made his own custom bait from several ingredients and the big trout loved it. He kept it in a small Skippy peanut butter jar.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]On one trip we were really catching a lot of fish and the "sharing" anglers in other boats started crowding in around us. But they were doing very poorly compared to our catch rate. When they got surly and irate...and demanded to know what we were using...my buddy just held up the peanut butter jar, rebaited a hook from it and kept catching fish. It was a funky looking stuff that wasn't too far off from peanut butter in appearance. When our fellow tanglers asked how we were able to keep it on the hook my buddy volunteered that he had to mix it with some flour...to make a dough.
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[#0000FF]The rest of the story? In the fishing report of the local paper the following week it was announced that anglers were hammering catfish on Irvine Lake with peanut butter doughball baits. Laugh time.
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Just about all meat works. I’m not sure why anyone thinks this is strange. Most fish are carnivorous. In grade school we’d bike to 2 ponds. If we ran out of worms we’d use hot dogs or bologna. It worked on the bluegill in one pond and the catfish in the bigger deeper lake. Bass aren’t any harder than bluegill to catch on hotdog. Have used meat many times in pitch in both salt and fresh water. A little leftover fatty grilled steak also works well if you’re eating well on Vacation. Salt pork and pork rind has been used since at least the days of Hemingway for salt water fishing.
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Not so much a weird bait as a funny situation. Years ago when I lived in Colorado I had a neighbor that was a fly fishing purist - very proud of his fishing skills if you know what I mean. Anyway he invited me to go out with him. We got to the river and we were catching a few but it was a bit slow. Then I caught a female that was super ripe. When I got her in she squirted eggs all over the place. I was like whahoo jackpot! Without letting my neighbor see what I was doing I put one egg on my little fly and sure enough instantly had a nice fish on (yeah it was legal where we were at although I am pretty sure he would not have approved). Well I proceeded to do this until my neighbor was about ready to start throwing things and wanted to leave. IDK maybe it wasn't very nice [angelic][sly] but I thought it was pretty funny.
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I Had a group of scouts down at Lake Powell about 14 years ago, we were getting ready to pull the boat out and while we were waiting for the truck and trailer one of the kids put a piece of apple on a hook and started jigging it 5-10 feet down. Had a catfish come off the bottom and follow that thing around until he finally hooked it.
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Since we know it wasn't really peanut butter, can you give us a hint about what what the real recipe was?
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[#0000FF]I never got the exact recipe, but it was probably similar to the old "Pokee Bait" made and sold in Utah back "in the day". As much as I can remember it had cheese, flour, Pautzke's red nectar, and some anise (licorice) oil in it. Whatever it was, the planted rainbows in Irvine lake sure liked it.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]They also liked plain Velveeta cheese...or a cheese sundae. That was a small gob of Velveeta with a red Pautzke's salmon egg on the hook point...for extra color and flavor. Also had good results on the red Pautzkes eggs with some garlic powder sprinkled in the bottle.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Probably one of the wildest and craziest things I ever used was a "waxed paper buzz bait". Two pieces of waxed paper about two inches wide and two inches long were rolled into tight 2" tubes. These tubes were bent in the middle and hooked together with a small 1/2" rubber band. Then they were twisted and twisted...and secured in place with a small piece of Scotch tape.
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[#0000FF]We would make up a dozen or so of these things and then go to a small lake that had some cagy largemouths. They liked to hang at the edge of the shoreline weed bed and ambush grasshoppers or other bugs that flew out off the bank. We put a hook through a loop in the twisted rubber band and made short lob casts out to the "zone". Then we waited for the water to loosen the tape and the freed rubber band would make the two pieces of rolled wax paper splash and buzz as they spun in the water. If a bass was nearby they went nuts. Memorable strikes.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]I was thinking about that recently and wondered why I haven't ever used it since. Might be that pond was a special situation. But I can't help believe that it might work in some place like Mantua.
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Wow. That was cool. I would loved to have seen that.
If anyone tries that, I want to hear a report.
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My kids lost some popcorn in Willard one day. They drifted away for a bit before a bunch of fish slurped every piece right off the top. Never did try any on a hook or see what species took them, but I'm certain popcorn would have worked to some degree. We were only there for a family beach day, no fishing.
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Back in the sixties, I was fishing the Bass Ponds between Tremonton and Deweyville. I had scutted out onto a pipe that crossed the south end of the main pond and saw a nice bass below me. I had ran out of worms, so I tied some green grass onto a bare hook in the shape of a ugly fly. It was just the trick to get him to bite. He came off when I tried to lift him up to the pipe. A lot of nice bass came out of that pond.
Does anyone know who owns it now. I would like to put a tube in there again.
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Good fishing to all. Hue
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About 4 years ago, wife and I were taking a long weekend at Utah Lake. Fished the first day out of American Fork, caught a bunch of White Bass on bare brass hooks. The next day we decided to go out thru Provo Harbor and State Park. We had not kept many of the Whities, and the Cats didn't seem to have any interest in them anyway. So I think out of boredom, the wife puts a worm and a Swedish Fish candy on a hook. Bang...! Fish on ! [shocked] Caught several like that. I thought she had made a new bait discovery. When we got home I posted what I thought was a pretty unique discovery............and of course I had several folks reply that they had used gummy bears and Swedish fish for years............[:/]
Well maybe they did and maybe they didn't, but have never caught another fish of any kind on them......at least with that bait if the fish aren't biting we can snack on the bait, right ? [  ] [fishon]
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