offbeat Live Baits

I know most fishermen have used Minnows, Leeches, and nightcrawlers for bait. What are some other offbeat live baits that you have tried – How did they work? Growing up I used a variety of live baits that I don’t see for sale or used much anymore.

Live Frogs ( Leopard ) – This was our go to bait when fishing on the rivers around where I grew up ( Crow wing and Long prairie ) We would lip hook them on a Bettlespin or mister twister and catch the heck out of pike and Walleyes. We also would use them in the lilly pads for largemouth bass. The worked really well. The smaller Green ones were the best. For some reason the brown ones did not seem to work as good or at least we didn’t think so. I made a few extra $ each summer catching them and selling them to the bait store in Motley.

Crickets / Grasshoppers – My father lived down south in Georgia and I would often spend part of my summer months visiting him. Every bait shop there sold crickets. You would buy them by the inch in a long tube. They even had special bait holders made to store and use them. It was a mesh tube with a pointed tip on it. Crickets were deadly on what they call Brem or Shellcrackers. Almost the same as our sunfish here in Minnesota. The shellcrackers did have a larger mouth – I still think some of the hybreed sunfish we now have here in Minnesota have some shellcracker in them. They also caught a fair amount of really large bass on them. My all time largest bass was caught on a cricket. It was near 10Lbs. That was a blast for a 12 year old boy on a ultralight rod. I use to have a picture of that fish – Not sure where it is these days.

Crayfish – We use to spend a whole day catching them in the smaller creeks and rivers. Turning over rocks and even big boulders to get at them. Mostly caught them by hand but later on we started using a small net ( a lot less pinched fingers ) They worked really well on the walleyes on both the river and lakes in the area. They worked best if you removed their pinchers.

Waterdogs ( A younger version of a Salamder I believe – These had a short run in the 80’s. They were excellent for walleye, Pike, and Basss. Not many bait stores sold them. The ones that did charges ALOT for them. My alltime biggest Minnesota bass was caught on one ( right at 6.5lbs )

Anyone else have any live baits they have tried ???

What – No one here ever use live bait – or just nothing other than the usual

How about catalpa worms. Used them for panfish when I was a kid. Climb the catalpa tree and pick your bait off the leaves. Cut the worm in half and turn inside out when putting it on the hook.
Lots of fun on the cane pole.

Used everything you mentioned but water dogs. Also earthworms, and grubworm.

I use goldenrod grubs quite often for winter panfish. When I chase pheasants in the fall, if I run into a good pod of them I’ll grab a bunch of bulbs and remove the actual grub at a later date.

Two years ago I was at the local bait store and they had these giant tadpoles swimming in there minnow tank. I said how much are those, he said they don’t usually sell them. Well I bought six of them and took them lake trout fishing. They were magic. Last year I got some more and could not get a bite on them.

Pick up some acorns and put in some dirt in the fall. Make sure the lid is on.

When I was about 10 years old and worming was slow one day, I had an epiphany……SLUGS!

They looked so great that I figured no fish could resist them……

Turns out sunfish won’t even sniff one…..let alone eat one

June bug larvae always worked good for big bluegills and others.

Mention willowcats,and one has to take out a small loan for them

I watched a YouTube video on catching Crane Fly Larva and now I want to try and catch some for bait. It was pretty cool – here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EvMH76vwh8

Here is the link to the Part 1 video on Crane Fly Larva. He caught some nice bait using the crane fly larva for bait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bt7hfd_jr4

Not exactly live bait, well at least at time of use, but my brother and I would use Chicken liver for cat fish on the Sauk River Chain. Cheap at grocery stores and works well.

weedis wrote:

Not exactly live bait, well at least at time of use, but my brother and I would use Chicken liver for cat fish on the Sauk River Chain. Cheap at grocery stores and works well.

I used chicken liver a lot for catfish in the private ponds in Georgia and Alabama. Found they worked best if you left it out in the sun for sometime prior to use. How long depended on how hot it was and how strong of a stomach you have – They would get rather rip smelling rather fast if it was really hot out

riverruns wrote:

Pick up some acorns and put in some dirt in the fall. Make sure the lid is on.

What happens to acorns when put in the dirt????

milemark_714 wrote:

June bug larvae always worked good for big bluegills and others.

Mention willowcats,and one has to take out <nobr style=”font-size: inherit”>a small loan</nobr> for them

i believe the June bug larvae is what i called a grub worm. we used to go dig thru manure piles to find them!!!!

I still use

-Willowcats every spring for walleye.

– chicken liver ever spring & summer for catfish

– beaver tail for panfish

When digging for worms to fish with, I was always excited when I came across some grubs. They inevitably always caught the biggest bluegills.

Down here, the oddest bait are mole crabs AKA sand fleas. They don’t even look like they would have much meat on them, but pompano and sheephead love them.

Knutes bait Star Prairie, used to trap water dogs for me, pounded the big walleyes with those, had to keep the water chilled or they would start to eat each other, pretty soft head, best on a slip bobber, or rigging them. DK

I gotta try the Hotdog thing on tip-ups.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

I gotta try the Hotdog thing on tip-ups.

We used hotdogs on tip-ups on lake of the woods a few years ago. They out fished the live bait and were even with the dead smelt. The cheaper mushy ones are the best. I have never tried them anyplace other than Lake of the woods. I’d think they would work almost anywhere fish are use to feeding on dead and decaying fish or minnows. I think that is why they work so well on lake of the woods. Those fish are use to eating dead bait flowing out of a lot of the creeks and rivers that flow into the lake.