Stirring the live bait pot.

Oldschool · Post by **Oldschool** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:24 am

When topic of live bait fishing for largemouth bass comes up anglers tend to get polarized.
I have been on both sides of the live bait fishing for bass, so here is my few point after about 50 years of bass fishing our local lakes.
Ban the use of using live bait (baitfish, salamanders and crayfish) fishing in lakes under 5,000 surfaces acres for a 90 period starting January 1st in SoCal and February in NorCal.
Live bait being any legal bait allowed by CA fishing regulations and local regulations.
My reasoning is; pre spawn and spawning bass in small lakes are extremely vulnerable to being caught with the use of live baits such as; bait fish, salamanders and crayfish. The act of catching bass can lead to hgih mortality rates for the larger adult females, by recreational anglers.
Larger lakes have enough area that fishing pressure alone doesn't have a negative impact on the bass fishery. The smaller trophy bass lakes can be over harvested with a combination of live bait and lures during spawning time period. Once the bass dispurse after the spawn, the impact of live bait fishing is greatly reduced.
Tom

Oldschool · Post by **Oldschool** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:02 pm

Bump this up for anyone interested in live baiting fresh water LMB.
Tom

DaveH · Post by **DaveH** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 4:40 pm

Two Words.... Bodacious Bass
Good ole Crupi
Kinda good that was forgotten about, till now, way to go man....

Good Point, gut hooked double digit bass hanging on a stringer of a rental tin, I remember those days at Castaic, whad'nt me though. I used nightcrawlers, again a joke!

JamesH · Post by **JamesH** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 6:22 pm

I find that bass swollow senkos faster than they swollow a live minnow.... why I have no idea but I have hooked way more bass in the gullet on a senko than with a minnow.

James

jigginpig · Post by **jigginpig** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 7:06 pm

Oldschool, i like you more and more...

the issue in question is often obscured by the issue at hand.

many anglers dislike live bait due to the (incorrect) notion that live bait is un-sporting. for many years i myself adhered to this principle, despite the fact that many if not most of my heros and idols of fishing traded in live bait tactics from time to time. i like most started on live bait. i have never caught a LMB on an artificial lure that is bigger than the biggest one i caught on live bait (crawfish, collected from my maternal Grandmother's front yard after a South East Texas gullywash) despite the HUGE advantage i now have in age, experience, equipment, range, and money i have at this point in my life. when i caught my PB, i was not yet shaving, and M.C. Hammer's "You can't Touch This" was on the charts.

i have never observed any hooked fish to relax when it realized it was stung by an artifical lure. NEVER! # 20 Parachute Adams included. fish basicly HATE getting sore lipped. they dont care if it is a San Juan Worm, or garden hackle. they freak the f*** out.

period.

so it all comes down to us. we are the stewards. we have the big ambitions and plans. we are the ones who must ensure the future of not just our avocation, but our habitat. we decide the ways in which we shall conduct ourselves. and it is to ourselves, and our offspring, to whom we shall answer.

we must do whatever we can to ensure our actions have minimal impact on the future.

a very small way to do this would include the ways we choose to fish. we can take pains to protect the resource.

if live bait is used, and i see no reason why it should not be, we can collect the bait from watersheds where it is already established, so as not to introduce non-native species. we can avoid targeting individual fish at vulnerable points in their life cycle. we can use rigging and tactics that ensure that even if a fish is deep hooked, it will stand the greatest possible chance of survival. and we can make sure that the example we set through our actions is something to which all future anglers can aspire.

Shaun

smpboy · Post by **smpboy** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 8:28 pm

good idea but with so few wardens down here in so cali it is kinda pointless if u cant enforce it.

mark poulson · Post by **mark poulson** » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:48 am

If you pinch down the barb on senko or ika hooks, you can turn the hook in a gut hooked fish easily, and get it out without tearing up their stomachs.

jigginpig · Post by **jigginpig** » Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:25 am

smpboy wrote:good idea but with so few wardens down here in so cali it is kinda pointless if u cant enforce it.

this is about an individual taking the initiative. i am all to aware of the logistical dilemas facing enforcement of laws pertaining to natural resources, but to say as some do that another angler's bad behavior is an excuse to dipense with moral modes of conduct is a severly regressive concept.

we all wear big boy pants, right?

Gerryjig · Post by **Gerryjig** » Sun Jan 24, 2010 12:56 pm

smpboy wrote:good idea but with so few wardens down here in so cali it is kinda pointless if u cant enforce it.

I agree. DFG doesn't want anymore rules whatsoever. Being through the So. Ca. MLPA process, you can see the DFG is undermanned and the last thing they want is anything within a grey area. Simple rules that are easy to enforce is what they want. Forget about the $40mil per year in enforcing the MLPA's......give the $ to the DFG for more enforcement personell......WE NEED MORE DFG GUYS!.....PERIOD!

mark poulson · Post by **mark poulson** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 6:52 am

Gerryjig wrote:
smpboy wrote:good idea but with so few wardens down here in so cali it is kinda pointless if u cant enforce it.
I agree. DFG doesn't want anymore rules whatsoever. Being through the So. Ca. MLPA process, you can see the DFG is undermanned and the last thing they want is anything within a grey area. Simple rules that are easy to enforce is what they want. Forget about the $40mil per year in enforcing the MLPA's......give the $ to the DFG for more enforcement personell......WE NEED MORE DFG GUYS!.....PERIOD!

+1

When's the last time a DFG boat pulled up on you on the water?
I know, for me, it was 2005 at Castaic, and I fish there pretty regularly.
It was about the same time period for me on the salt, too. I last had a bag check from DFG back then.
They just don't have the manpower to enforce the laws that are on the books.

Oldschool · Post by **Oldschool** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 7:48 am

This issue with live bait isn't all about gut hooking, it's about the numbers being caught and the stress of over handling when caught.
The fact is you can't transport a bass from the lake to a certified scale in CA for an offical weight, it's against CA DGF regulations.
For example the Crupi 22.01 bass was illegal due to the fact Bob transported the bass to get it weighed, just like we all did at Castaic and Casitas, because the lakes don't have a cerified scale.
What does that have to do with live bait? The regulation is there because fisherman transplant bait and unwanted fish using their livewells. It is illegal to leave any CA lake with live bass in the livewell. No live bait and we may not need that regulation causing us to break the law every time we try to get a certified weight for a bass we plan to release. This is why I carry a certified scale in the boat.
Tom

elfish16 · Post by **elfish16** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 8:25 am

Live bait..hmmm...very touchy subject to many people. I for one have been fishing Casitas since I was a little kid in a child harness on my dads back. Caught my first bass when I was 3 or 4 years old and it was a crawdad fish. My entire life I've never seen fishing a live crawdad or waterdog as a bad thing.

First of all to get the BIG fish that everyone acts like takes nothing with live bait is you have to find them in the normal spots you would fishing a jig or worm or even a swimbait. Most of the weekend anglers aren't catching these big ones on the rental boats or off the shorelines but the big ones are caught by seasoned bass anglers fishing spots...catching them, snapping quick photos and releasing on the spot.

I personally agree there needs to be more DFG at the lakes to ensure rules are followed. I am not talking about live bait rules and such but LIMIT rules. I personally have seen more people than I'd like to admit leaving casitas with 10-15 bass over 5lbs that were caught on live Shad. they were drug around the bank for hours and mangled or drug behind a rental boat.

I don't know about you but I think a lot of the damage done to fisheries is primarily due to anglers bouncing big bass in the boats and leaving in livewells too long. Derby days are a different story.

Crawdads are no big deal...I miss fishing these guys on my home lake a lot as they catch BIG BASS if fished in the right spots.

some guy · Post by **some guy** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 9:25 am

Whenever I see this I always say something to the people. They play dumb like they dont know, oooh but they know. Ive gone as far as taking a guys stringer with over 20 bass on it and letting them all go at Hodges. He wasnt every happy about it but there wasnt much he could do to stop me. Those SD lakes get hammered HARD by live bait guys who take way more than their limit. I could care less about using live bait, but when someone abuses the limit thats when I care. There is no one at those SD lakes to enforce the rules, so I will when I see one getting violated. If I dont, who will?

My buddy that runs the dock at a SD lake, kicked a group of live bait guys out for not having a license. ANy of them. Same group came back the next day and tried to do it again. They know the rules. They just ignore them, and thats what really gets under my skin.

Oldschool · Post by **Oldschool** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:14 am

I'm repeating myself, the message never sinks in. It's a numbers issue with live bait. More big bass are caught using live crawdads, waterdogs, mudsuckers and golden shiners during the pre spawn and spawn, then there would be if live bait wasn't allowed.
The simple fact is big bass are subject to higher mortality rates than smaller bass. Lets say that 10% die when caught, regardless how they were caught. If live bait wasn't allowed during that time periods, then at least 10% more big bass would be in the lake. However the numbers are far greater than 10% because less skilled bass anglers can catch big bass during this time period. The bass are going agianst their instinct to leave shallow water and stay to be caught.
Have you ever fished a live crawdad or a waterdog in a bass bed? it's instant strike. I caught a few hundred 10+ bass during the 70's doing exactly that and guarantee some of those bass died as a result of live bait fishing, that would not have been caught using lures.
The 10% can die when caught on lures, just far fewer are caught.
WRB

some guy · Post by **some guy** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:36 am

Oldschool wrote:I'm repeating myself, the message never sinks in. It's a numbers issue with live bait. More big bass are caught using live crawdads, waterdogs, mudsuckers and golden shiners during the pre spawn and spawn, then there would be if live bait wasn't allowed.
The simple fact is big bass are subject to higher mortality rates than smaller bass. Lets say that 10% die when caught, regardless how they were caught. If live bait wasn't allowed during that time periods, then at least 10% more big bass would be in the lake. However the numbers are far greater than 10% because less skilled bass anglers can catch big bass during this time period. The bass are going agianst their instinct to leave shallow water and stay to be caught.
Have you ever fished a live crawdad or a waterdog in a bass bed? it's instant strike. I caught a few hundred 10+ bass during the 70's doing exactly that and guarantee some of those bass died as a result of live bait fishing, that would not have been caught using lures.
The 10% can die when caught on lures, just far fewer are caught.
WRB

im picking up what you are setting down. Its great in theory. Good luck enforcing it sadly.

Oldschool · Post by **Oldschool** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:26 am

Ive been on this soap box for over 30 years now and nothing has happen other than a few debates. Some changes have taken place during that time; waterdogs (tiger salamanders) are banned in CA, not because of livebait issues, but environmental issues. Golden shiners are banned due to the transportation laws of none native fish, unless you can catch them in some of lakes. The quagga mussell issue has curbed the crawdad use, however crawdads are easy to catch' so I imagine they are being used more than we know. Swimbaits ahve replaced wide spread live trout usage, we don't see refrigurated livewells anymore. Several trophy giant bass lakes no longer produce big bass.
I like the argument " I caught my personal best on a live crawdad and don't see any harm using them", followed by " It's still in freezer, one of these years I'll have it mounted".
Peace, it's pre spawn, see you on the lake.
Tom

CN · Post by CN » Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:08 pm

If the Lake allows live bait then I see nothing wrong with it.

It's the people that keep over the limit,under size fish,no license thats what I hate. Some Guides use live bait for Largemouth.

I know a guy that still uses waterdogs. I just dont get any satisfaction useing live bait.......well maybe for Stripers.

texas john · Post by **texas john** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 2:20 pm

The problem is the gut hook, wether it be with a senko or live bait. Why do fish enhale these baits so ferociously I do not know. The real bait cause it is real and the senko because it seems so real I really dont know. But there is a easy solution.

GET A MORE SENSATIVE ROD!!!!

J/K

Just was bored and thought I would chime in.

Have fun!!!

offduty · Post by **offduty** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 2:27 pm

elfish16 wrote:Live bait..hmmm...very touchy subject to many people. I for one have been fishing Casitas since I was a little kid in a child harness on my dads back. Caught my first bass when I was 3 or 4 years old and it was a crawdad fish. My entire life I've never seen fishing a live crawdad or waterdog as a bad thing.

First of all to get the BIG fish that everyone acts like takes nothing with live bait is you have to find them in the normal spots you would fishing a jig or worm or even a swimbait. Most of the weekend anglers aren't catching these big ones on the rental boats or off the shorelines but the big ones are caught by seasoned bass anglers fishing spots...catching them, snapping quick photos and releasing on the spot.

I personally agree there needs to be more DFG at the lakes to ensure rules are followed. I am not talking about live bait rules and such but LIMIT rules. I personally have seen more people than I'd like to admit leaving casitas with 10-15 bass over 5lbs that were caught on live Shad. they were drug around the bank for hours and mangled or drug behind a rental boat.

I don't know about you but I think a lot of the damage done to fisheries is primarily due to anglers bouncing big bass in the boats and leaving in livewells too long. Derby days are a different story.

Crawdads are no big deal...I miss fishing these guys on my home lake a lot as they catch BIG BASS if fished in the right spots.

+1 I could not have said it any better.