Successful walleye anglers take great pride in the notion that the walleye is one of the toughest freshwater fish to catch consistently. Anglers that have earned a level of consistency boating walleye have fished through their share of tough bites and come out the other side focused on detail to a degree rarely seen by those that devote time to other species. As a hedge against the persnickety walleye devoted anglers are known to obsess endlessly over finding a favorite jig in just the perfect shade of chartreuse and will happily buy a half dozen crank baits in the same size and pattern in the hopes of finding just one good one with that perfect wobble.
However, many of these detail obsessed walleye anglers will show up at a bait shop and take the first two tubs of crawlers that they can get their hands on. Leeches are purchased sight unseen and anglers rush out the bait shop doors with 2" fatheads when they know a big redtail chub is really what gets the walleyes going. Once in the boat things go from bad to worse in a hurry. Bait of marginal quality will catch a few fish if properly cared for once an angler does get to their destination. Unfortunately, what typically happens is those two tubs of crawlers are quickly baked in the sun while the leeches are destined to be boiled alive in their 8 oz. foam sided sauté pans due to improper care.
If you’ve spent any time with me pre-fishing for a tournament or on a guide trip you’ve undoubtedly witnessed my obsession over the live bait that makes it to the working end of my jigs & rigs. I pick my own crawlers when conditions allow and net my own minnows. When I’m forced to buy bait from a bait shop I’m going to take the time to make sure I’m getting the biggest and liveliest yard snakes I can lay my hands on. Leeches that will suit my needs will need to be properly sorted and housed in fresh water in bulk prior to purchase. My experience with leeches pre-sorted by the dozen into those 8 oz Styrofoam cups has left me with a pretty low opinion of that arrangement. Instead, I prefer to watch the bait shop guy hand pick a dozen or two fresh from bulk storage so I know what I’m getting and that it hasn’t been stuck at the back of some refrigerator for days on end. If the water on the bulk leeches is cloudy, or worse yet, filled with the dead and dying… I’m headed for the bait shop door and the next shop down the road.
Why spend all the extra time and quite often, additional money, to fuss over hand selected leeches and 10 inch long night crawlers as big around as a man’s finger when time is short and you’d rather be on the water fishing than sorting bait? The answer is simple. After all the time spent perfecting my boat control skills, learning to locate my target species and to put jigs and rigs on the noses of a school of hungry walleyes regardless of conditions, I’m not about to drop a sub-par crawler or scrawny 2" fathead in the water and give that walleye of a lifetime eyeballing my bait an excuse to do anything other than gobble up my offering. I would be willing to bet that my live bait obsession rarely adds more than an additional half an hour to my prep time when I get my bait from a shop. When I’m able to pick my own crawlers or trap my own minnows, I’ll often invest half a day to obtain bait that meets my gold standard and these bait gathering excursions often supply me with enough bait to last for 8 – 10 trips. And those efforts are often rewarded with huge improvements in my catch rates versus bait of marginal quality. I catch more fish. I catch bigger fish more often. That’s time well spent in my book.
Obtaining good bait is really only half the battle. Once you’ve committed yourself to holding out for the good stuff, you know, the stuff hid behind the counter and previously reserved for close friends of the guy running the register, then you need to maintain the quality of that bait with proper care and handling.
One of the best products on the market designed to preserve the vitality of our carefully selected live baits comes from Bait Tamer. These soft-sided tackle storage containers do an incredible job of preserving crawlers, leeches and minnows with specific Bait Tamer models designed to suit the unique needs of each bait type. While other Bait Tamer models are available to suit other needs, I find that the Leech & Crawler Tamer works incredibly well for those two bait types while the 5 Gallon Minnow Tamer excels at keeping bigger minnows alive and healthy starting with their initial capture, transportation and all the way through the duration my fishing trips.
The Leech and Crawler Tamers look a bit like a perforated pouch with a Velcro enclosure at the top and an integrated Styrofoam float that keeps the pouch floating and available for easy access should you opt to place your Bait Tamer in your live well or bait well.
Here are a couple tips for storing your leeches and crawlers in your Bait Tamer. Leeches can be stored in a Leech Tamer for days, even weeks, if water quality and temperatures are maintained. The perforated holes in the sides of the Tamer allow for an incredible amount of water exchange on the leeches. This water exchange keeps oxygen levels high, temperatures consistent and the effects of waste build up at a minimum. My preferred method for storing leeches in my boat involves using a small lunch box sized cooler with a small amount of water in the bottom. Ice is added to maintain a temperature from 45 – 55 degrees and leeches in the Tamer are immediately returned to the cooler after bait has been removed.
One of my favorite features of Crawler Tamer is that dirt or bedding is no longer needed to maintain the health of your hand picked yard snakes. This keeps your boat and fingers clean and aids "plumping" of your crawlers. If you’re not familiar with "plumping" and how it can make your crawlers destined to be fish on a jig or on a slowly presented live bait rig, you need look no further than the street in front of your house following a hard rain. Notice how fat, or plump, those crawlers in the remaining puddles look after they’ve had a chance to soak for a few hours! Big, plump crawlers are a tasty treat few walleyes can resist and the ideal bait storage product would provide a way to expose crawlers to the moisture needed to "plump" without drowning those crawlers. The Crawler Tamer does just that. By storing your crawlers in a Crawler Tamer in a small cooler loaded with ice and a minimal amount of water in the bottom of the cooler an angler is able to take advantage of the benefits of plump, lively crawlers without the need to keep those crawlers in bedding or dirt.
One exception to the "Plumping Method" is when your plan to use your crawlers behind spinner rigs. If that’s the plan, drown those crawlers! And here’s why. Crawlers on a spinner harness have a bad habit of curling up or twisting on the harness when they’re alive which causes your rig to twist or corkscrew through the water. This corkscrew action in the water is incredibly detrimental to your presentation. Ideally a crawler to be used on a spinner rig would be big, fat and stone cold DEAD. The spinner provides the movement and color needed to attract the fish and the scent and profile of the crawler seals the deal the nano-second before the strike. If your crawlers are intended to be used behind spinner rigs, pick out enough crawlers to get you through the day, load them into your Crawler Tamer and place the Tamer into your livewell. The livewell should have enough water in it to completely cover the Tamer. In a couple of hours you’ll have fat and very lifeless crawlers that can be used all day and are absolutely deadly in this particular application.
I’m a diehard big minnow guy and I’ll go to incredible lengths to get my hands on big suckers, chubs and willowcats for use on my guide trips or in tournaments. When I won the 2008 FLW Cass Lake Tournament it was 5 – 8 inch chubs that put all of my bigger fish in my boat during pre-fishing and during all four days of the tournament. When a huge payday is on the line, I’m not about to trust my bait supply that I drove 3 hours to catch by hand prior to the tournament to just any bait care system. The 5 Gallon Bait Tamer enclosures have proven themselves to me time after time to be up to the task. Without them I’d be up every couple hours each night to fret and hover over my minnows during midnight bait inspections conducted by flashlight. Now, if you’re not into catching your own then you’re likely familiar with “big minnow sticker shock.” That’s the pain you feel in your head and in your wallet when you walk a walk a weeks supply of 8 – $10 a dozen walleye treats from the bait tank to the bait shop counter. I can guarantee you’ll only allow yourself to kill off $200 worth of minnows one time before you’ll get real serious about finding a fool-proof system for keeping these baits alive. And the 5 Gallon Bait Tamers make it easy.
The 5 Gallon Bait Tamers have several huge advantages over your standard minnow bucket. One of the biggest advantages is that the perforated enclosure allows for an incredible amount of water exchange, unlike standard floating bait pails that only have perforations to allow water exchange in limited areas. The more water you can flush through your bait the better. This leads to higher oxygen levels, reduced temperatures and the elimination of waste by products. Another big advantage is that the Bait Tamer enclosures are weighted precisely so the enclosure floats right at the surface of the water in your livewell. This is important as it keeps sloshing to a minimum and thus keeps your minnows from being tossed around their enclosure with each wave. Standard minnow buckets float high in the water which leaves an air space at the top of the pail which in turn allows water to slap and slosh around in the bucket. This type of motion can turn a healthy batch of $8 a dozen minnows into seagull food in short order. And finally, one of my favorite features of the Bait Tamer products is that they’re collapsible. Most days you will find 4 – 6 Bait Tamer products in my boat at one time. When not in use, they easily all collapse down and fit in a small storage compartment and still offer room for my other “wet” items such as planer boards, drift sock, etc. With storage space in my boat at a high premium due to the huge tournament load I carry with me at all times, finding a place for an army of standard bait buckets would literally be impossible.
Most that know me would say my obsession with livebait gives me an edge out on the tournament trail competing for that next big check. I would say my obsession for the perfect livebait is just one small but crucial part of being successful on the Professional Tour or any time I want to maximize my catch rates and get the most out of my time spent on the water. Paying attention to the fine details is what really gives me an edge while competing at the top level and maintaining a focus on bait selection and care will prove invaluable to anglers of all ability levels. When it all comes down to it, the angler with the liveliest and hardest kicking redtail dancing in front of that $100,000 walleye is going to come out ahead while the angler limping through their tournament day with half-dead minnows is going to slip to the back of the pack.
Scott Steil
FLW Touring Pro
In-Depth Outdoors Field Staff
