Thread: #1 Gill/Cracker Bait

I killed it last weekend with some live worms. My nephew tried some powerbait stuff, no luck for him.

Crickets work best on the lake I fish most often. Redworms work well also. I would like to try some jigs, just have not got to it yet....

Mini mite or aka cubby various colors in southern missouri I use panther martin fly spinner or slender spoon from custom jigs and spins fly rod is st juans red worm

Vengeance has been working well lately for me. Check it out in my siggy.

I prefer mealworms for bluegills and redworms for shellcrackers.

Unfortuneately can no longer get them, but HANDS DOWN the BEST ice fishing bait I ever used were live "scuds' on a #12 hook. Would almost always go thru 50 in an afternoon, evening or night. They caught ALL kinds of fish, even a 3 pd smallmouth and a 4 1/2 pd walleye. Hard to believe a bigger fish would BOTHER to eat so small a bait, but GULP them down they sure did. Spring and summer maggots are deadly, small leaches certainly produce and when want BIG `gills use 1"- 1 1/2' crayfish suspended about 1` off the bottom.

spikes

Peeled crawdad tail works every bit as well as popcorn shrimp and can be treated ahead of time the same way. A lot of times when you can get crawdads you can get a lot of em, just batch em up peeled and salted and freeze them in outing sized plastic bags. If you haven't tried using one of those vacuum freezer bag sealers, you owe it to yourself to try, but a hint firm freeze your fish and bait pieces flat first like on a cookie sheet or you will be sucking juice right into the machine, which will be a mess you can avoid.

Depends on time of year.

Spring, pinch of worm, #6 hook, small split shot about 2' up... cast to the rock, let it sink. Caught some dandies.

When they scatter on my fav. lake... a teny craw by rebel... you can not real this slow enough... cast to shore, real super slow, they smash it. Caught em up to 12" one after another, as well as large gills, a bass or two, etc.

When I use the pre cooked shrimp, I nuke em a little and it makes em tuff and stays on the jig better.

crappie cowboy