Official Debate Post

Live bait or artificial?

Does it matter if you are on lakes or rivers? How about some of these new live bait mimicking synthetic baits, any of them beat actual live bait?

… You mean “DeBait” post.. lol

Live for me. I have close to zero faith in artificials, outside of maybe the first couple weeks of season, so I rarely try them and since I barely ever use them I barely catch anything on them which just reinforces it for me.

Currently all we got is an empty hook. There isn’t anything left to it. No one home.

The only thing we have to replace it with is an orange grub. And lots of the fish aren’t digging the orange.

depends………..on what i’m fishing for.

the few times i fish walleyes…..mostly live bait….but have daught some on rapalas/

pike nuttin but artifical and 99% of the time daredevels.

panfish….waxies or leeches…but i’ve gotten more comfortable with plastics……that after this Jimmy guy gave me so much grief for not trying them. i now have the faith!!!!!!

Don’t use old senile bait. It performs very poorly…

Plastics 90 percent of the time. Live only when needed. And some days it is needed. The fish need to tell me.

Cold water-live
Warm-artificial
Exceptions? sometimes

Artificial. The closest I get to live bait is Gulp.

In Canada, 100% artificial… in the US, live bait… come on man !!!

Both, each has their pros and cons. My local sports shop closed up. It is now a 37 mile round trip for me to purchase minnows.

thank god this isn’t a political post

Huntindave wrote:

My local sports shop closed up. It is now a 37 mile round trip for me to purchase minnows.

This is me too. THe only two near me are closed, both last year. One of them was in business for 45 years too. Its a tough business to make it in.

I’ve tried to ween myself off live bait for years. The only time I’m still using it with any regularity is in the spring when crappie fishing. And even then, I’m using small plastics about half the time. Live bait is expensive and its a PITA to keep alive.

Huntindave wrote:

Both, each has their pros and cons. My local sports shop closed up. It is now a 37 mile round trip for me to purchase minnows.

I pretty much only fish one lake now and only need to go 2 blocks out of my way for bait. I guess if there was some difficulty in getting it I would reconsider and actually try artificials more.

The biggest downside of live bait for me is when somebody (probably me) forgets to empty the Engel before sticking the boat in the garage

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

thank god this isn’t a political post

it is only if you make it one????

i see alot of type of baits responses!!!!!!

I’d say these days I’m about 95% non live bait. About the only time I use live bait these days is a few times a year I fish walleyes below a slip bobber with leeches. I do use a wax worm or larva from time to time in the winter when chasing panfish as well.

Live bait became a PITA when all the clean drain dry crap went into place. I mean if you cannot keep bait that NEVER went into the lake water and came with the water from the bait shop or you have to drain it and replace with bottled water or whatever they ask you to do what a PITA.
We use live bait solely for walleyes in Canada because we just really havent tried artificials much, but this year one boat tried it for a few hours and maybe not surprisingly caught their biggest fish on plastics. We use rigs and not jigs. These guys used jigs for a bit and worked for them. Far fewer numbers of fish however.

I still use live more often than not. Still trying to gain confidence with plastics.

CaptainMusky wrote:

We use live bait solely for walleyes in Canada because we just really havent tried artificials much

My Father’s side of the family stumbled into this by accident a couple years ago. They had always mostly just used live bait during their weekly trip to Canada in June. Two years ago they ran out on day 3 so they tried some artificials they had with them. Catch rate was basically the same and they didn’t have to constantly re-bait.

Live bait up there is very expensive and not very healthy. This year they used 100% artificials. Catch rate was no different than previous years. I think some of them are wondering why they wasted so much time, money, and energy for 15 years dicking around with live bait up there.

Could someone expand on the “clean drain dry” rule? Are we required to dump our bait after fishing on all MN lakes Summer and Winter?

mark Mason wrote:

Could someone expand on the “clean drain dry” rule? Are we required to dump our bait after fishing on all MN lakes Summer and Winter?

Yes. You cannot leave the access with lake or river water. That includes livewell, ballast, bait buckets, etc.

As Captain Musky stated, the clean drain dry rule can be a burden when it comes to using live bait sometimes. Which is partially why I try to avoid using it.

gimruis wrote:

Live bait up there is very expensive and not very healthy.

We have had excellent luck with bait and I dont think it was overly expensive IMO. $130 for a pound and a half of large leeches and a half flat of crawlers. That is Canadian. So about 70 percent of that would be USD.

mark Mason wrote:

Could someone expand on the “clean drain dry” rule? Are we required to dump our bait after fishing on all MN lakes Summer and Winter?

Not the bait, the water. I think the only exception is for “portable bait containers when fishing through the ice except on waters designated infested for viral hemorrhagic septicemia”.

That being said the people who check my boat at access are sticklers for draining livewell but have never said a thing about my very obvious bait cooler.

same here Reef……livewell and check trailer for weeds. i usually bring a cooler with for water etc with ice in it. any fish i dump the ice on the fish…..they keep better cold.

they never look at my cooler(s)

mark Mason wrote:

Could someone expand on the “clean drain dry” rule? Are we required to dump our bait after fishing on all MN lakes Summer and Winter?

There has been no invasive species movement from all the flooding going on. It only happens on boats.

tim hurley wrote:

Cold water-live
Warm-artificial
Exceptions? sometimes

This is generally opposite of what I do.

I really only use live bait on presentations where it makes a big difference. Sometimes you just gotta throw a float out and sip a beer and wait, it’s a ritual of summer. Fishing an artificial leech under a slip bobber isn’t much fun. Pulling crawler harnesses in dirty water without a live crawler isn’t much fun either.

Other than that, give me a box of crankbaits and jigs with a selection of plastics and I’m a happy guy.

CaptainMusky wrote:

We have had excellent luck with bait and I dont think it was overly expensive IMO. $130 for a pound and a half of large leeches and a half flat of crawlers. That is Canadian. So about 70 percent of that would be USD.

Agreed, the joint I stop at west of Thunder Bay was very reasonable and fresh. At fish camp it can be a bit elevated. Even then, who cares about $100-200 extra on bait when you can easily burn that a day in fuel?

I’m still 50/50 live bait/artificial.

Yeah fuel consumption is no dang joke! LOL I brought 3 5 gallon cans and when I filled my boat up I only had 2 gallons left. 41 gallon tank!
Most forget that night crawlers in MN are largely coming from Canada. Leeches are probably better here, but the ones we get are lively and you can get at least 4 or 5 fish per leech if you are not sleeping.