Willard Cats and a bonus...

[TubeDude]

Nice, way to go on getting back out there and having success. Hey Forest, I've curious, why not use chub meat instead of shrimp, seem like shrimp are kind of expensive? I know driving to Lost creek is a ways, especially when you can buy shrimp at the grocery store but you can buy chub meat at Sportsman's.

  Curt, I don't have time or energy to make the drive to Lost Creek, and I can buy raw frozen shrimp already peeled with tails still on in a large bag at WinCo. They always have it and it lasts me a couple months or more without all the work to catch, gut, and bag Chub. I'm retired, I have 3 pensions and no debts, no mortgage, no truck payment, so the the cost really isn't an issue.

OK, just thought I'd let you know. I don't gut my chubs because it all adds to the scent in the water when your fishing, I just vacuum pack mine but as I said you can buy them at Sportsmans already packaged. I can understand not wanting to deal with the mess of cutting them up when you use them. Guess I'm too cheap to use shrimp, especially when they taste so good.

I have tried a wide variety of fish flesh, shrimp and other baits on Willard.  My opinion is that anything close to a natural fishy scent will get munched.  Strangely though, I have not done well using the spottail shiners in the lake.  Not as odoriferous, I guess.  

I think one of the things Forest experiences...that we don't...is the total swallowing of the bait.  When we use fligs we get a high percentage hookup on the strike and almost all fish are hooked in the corner of the mouth...or at least in the lips...not in the gut.  When I was just dragging whole chub minnows (without fligs) I too had a lot of gut hooked fish...even ones that I struck back at fairly quickly.