anybody got any tips for using live or dead baits? i'm tired of using my standard nightcrawlers for my live bait, yea they've always worked well for me but i'm tired of catching little fish with no fight. so far one rig i'm really liking the idea of is a large frozen anchovie/sardine or a dead minnow and criss-crossing back and forth along the spine with a thread and needle and then tying the thread to a circle hook(saw this on multiple fishing shows when guys are going for marlin) with about a 24" leader and an egg sinker whose weight will depend upon the current. i've used anchovies before and had fun catching a couple small stripers on them but oh my god they stank and always fell off the hook easily so i had to wrap the bait around my hook so half the time i couldn't hook them, i figure this will keep the bait on while not restricting the movement of the hook. mostly i'm hoping for stripers and catfish although the river i fish(sacramento river, woodland/knights landing area) has pike minnows and sturgeon that i think might also take this rig.
live/dead bait rigs
- Thread starter Danyal
- Start date
For live bait, and the fish you are targeting, a circle hook through the lips should be just fine. Its going to be damn hard to rig a small bait like you were just saying. Rigged baits are like that are usually bonita in the 2-10 pound range!
i'm glad somebody knew what i was talking about, i thought it'd be easy to do just on a smaller scale, like a 4~6" minnow tied to a 2/0 or 3/0 circle. my problem with hooking through the lips is that when i've done it before the bait falls off quite easily when i cast, it'd be fine if i was just dropping the line down from a boat or gently flipping into a hole.
Start the hook in the bottom jaw in the soft spot between the mandibles (I guess that is what they are called) and up into the mouth, through the roof of their mouth and out between the nostrils. I do this all the time and I can actually cast and retrieve the minnow several times with out it falling off. This is on live/fresh dead bait though. Frozen bait is soft and does fall off easily
yea, thats the problem i've had with frozen bait, it took a lot of thread and hooking to get the bait to stay on and once a striper hit it you ended up with a tangled mess of thread and bones you had to get off your hook before you could throw out again.
For fluke here in the saltwater, we commonly hook the dead bait through the eyes, they stay on and appear fairly natural in the water.
but how well do they stay on and stand up to multiple casts/strikes? thats one thing i like about worms is that they stay on the hook.
Dead fish aren't going to hold up to multiple strikes, and if you are casting hard - 1-2 casts max. Try putting them in a ton of kosher salt, that toughens them, plus you can keep them in the freezer without them truly freezing when salted. Good luck
when I fish with white bait(dead 2"long fish) here in Australia I use a 2 or 3 gang hook and put one hook through the eye and the rest through the body in a straight line. It works pretty well, the only problem is the bait is very soft and comes off on the second cast.
yea, thats what i don't want is to loose my bait every other cast. i'm going to have to try the salt, think mixing garlic with the salt will add sent as well as toughness?