Thread: gulp alive

Originally Posted by slabsrus

I have actually found the statement about them catching as many or more fish than live bait to be true. Of course this might just be me, but I would stand by that statement. Not that I am "Joe" fisherman or anything, but I would have no problem setting in the same school of fish as any angler using live bait and feel quite confident that I will catch as many fish as them. Once again, this is just my experience. This is just another thing that makes crappie.com such an awesome site. The variety of ideas and opinions,tips, experience, is endless.

My answer to that would be that the live bait fishermen you're fishing with probably are not using optimal techniques, i.e. are not getting the most out of their presentations. Live bait fished improperly is no better than any number of lures, not just Gulp. If I had a dollar for every time I've ever seen other fishermen on a public lake fishing with a large float and several split shot and a #1 gold hook on ten-pound-test, with their red wiggler threaded onto the hook so it no longer looks like a worm, catching nothing, and then wore them out myself with superior presentation of the same bait, I'd have several dollars. Just line size alone can make the difference: if the angler using Gulp is using light line, four-pound-test for example, and the bait angler is using ten-pound, just the difference in visibility of the two lines to the fish will make the difference - but it would also make the difference if both anglers were using Gulp, or both were using live bait. If all other factors (line test, location, etc.) are equal, and the bait angler is simply using a hook that's too large as most of the non-expert bait anglers I've ever seen tend to do, that big hook will drastically cut down on the number of mid-sized (under 8") bluegill that the bait angler is able to hook because the hook's size makes it more difficult for the fish to get into its mouth, and the bigger hook will spook most larger fish, thus a drastic reduction in fish caught. Same thing with a too-big float, or too much weight - just one detail of the presentation being wrong can wipe out the angler's chances on any day other than those rare days when the fish are jumping in the boat, and more often than not, in my experience, the average bait angler makes not one but all of these mistakes at the same time, as a matter of habit.

There's a guy on **************** who is a match fisherman, i.e. fishes tournaments all around the world; he has won some big tournaments that had anglers from several other countries as well as this one; and he recently made the same observation I and the other posters above me made, i.e. that Gulp is not bad, but does not come anywhere close to (properly-fished) live bait - he even noted that he did his own side-by-side comparison, and live bait outfished Gulp by more than two to one. And he is a guy who spends most of his time refining his presentation methods - he even designs his own line of floats.

I would gladly take the money of anyone who wanted to wager he could catch as many bluegill (same water, same day) on Gulp as I could on live bait.

Originally Posted by tnpondmanager

There's a guy on **************** who is a match fisherman ...

I know John. We've fished together in tournaments.

i have used the minnows and the meal worms. but i seem to catch catfish with them instead of bream. i have caught one bass with one of the minnows but still no bream.

i always keep a jar of the crappie nuggets and another jar of the gulp in the liquid with a mix of their critters caring more about the size of the bait then what creature i think they want when i start trying different things on slow days or new water. what i do hate is their plastic packages.the front pocket sized ziplock bag of gulp critters will have the bait melt together if left in the hot southern sun in no time. even the bags of larger sized bait can get ruined and the gulp juice can stain clothes and carpet.

I would have to agree, in some cases it has proven to me that it will out fish live bait. I didnt believe either but when I ran out of minnows fishing marina boat slips, I put them suckers on and I instantly started catching more fish, the bite was fast and hard, which wasnt the case with the live minnows. I got to the point where I would just take the bobber off and just swing a the gulp minnow beside the dock and watch my line pop before it even got 2 feet down. In my opinion those things work great I keep a pack in my pocket at all times!

tnpondmanager, the point about presentation is something no one here should forget. That is the guts of the whole thing. There is no such thing as a magic bait.

I do not personally use live bait much at all, anymore except through the ice and then not exclusively. You can do things with plastics and GULP that you cannot duplicate with live bait. There are times that GULP Alive in the small sizes like the 1" leech or the inch and a half jigging grub as are hot as any alternative can be. Other times not so much. The bigger sizes for panfish not so much either. But there are times for me that proper presentations of the little GULPs will outfish anything in the water.

What you say about hook size is also true. Too big of a hook and sunnies of all species will simply nibble around it and clean you off. Before I generally quit using bobbers at all some years ago, I found that the size of the bobber is also an important factor. Most people fish bobbers way too large for panfish and then they wonder why they sit. Line size the same. I do not really fish lighter lines for decreased visibility though, but rather so that I can control the smaller baits better, better casting, more dependable reading of lure action and light bites, and that sort of reason.

The disadvantage of GULP is that it gets stolen often enough that any hot bite can cost a pretty penny just in bait. Like live bait that wastes time on rebaiting. Day in and day out I start out with the more durable plastics, with GULP as a backup. Many of the better modern plastic baits will take fish after fish after fish on the same one. They are soft and lively as well as durable. On a fast bite, you get unhooked and back to the action far more quickly. They survive dink nibble better, too.

Good points, no1son. I think one other detail missing in this discussion is what size bluegill we're talking about (and I also think it's important to note that this is the bream, i.e. bluegill, section of the forum - a couple people in the thread have gotten to talking about crappie, which is not the discussion - I think several different brands of jig will often outfish live bait for crappie). Small bluegill will indeed often go after Gulp with great gusto rivaling that they show live bait; large bluegill, on the other hand, as in fish 9" or better, laugh at it. I've done decidedly better on Crappie Sliders for large bluegill than I have Gulp; but neither the sliders nor any other lure has ever, under any conditions, produced one-fourth as many large bluegill for me as has live bait.

I've caught dozens of largemouth in the five-pound range on lures, and my best, which would've gone at least seven, was caught on a buzzbait; but if I had one day to catch a bass over five pounds, I would leave the lures at home and fish with live bluegill. Small bass are easy to catch on lures because they're dumb; the same is true with small bluegill. The big ones of either species, however, are big for a reason, and they're a lot less likely, in my experience, to get snookered on Gulp or any other lure than they are the real thing.

Size sorts? - sunfish sure do! For better size though I don't change baits so much as move around. They don't seem to mingle so much as the smaller sunnies. What I normally see are localized pods of the larger fish keeping more or less to themselves, and even at times seeming to associate with larger crappies. I don't fish bluegills and sunnies hard though, but I have not so much seen a difference in bait preference so much as sizes sorting out to different locations.

One other thing needs to be said and that is heavier fished waters don't tend to grow so much size in any panfish as less fished ones, and some waters simply cannot grow the larger sunfish at all.

No sunfish are legal bait to fish with in Minnesota, but were they, they would take muskies like a dream. Every once in a while someone will ignorantly hookup a sunny and toss it out for muskies. There are times you simply cannot say something to them quick enough before they are hooked up. In a lot of waters, they also take bass like you mention.

That having been said our largest bass of this past year at 23" and big in the belly came on an 1inch and a half crappie tube last spring. So did about a dozen others at 20" and over (two man team, which is usually how we go). That was all fishing crappie sized (inch and and a half tubes up to 2" BG and Lake Fork plastics, and down to 1" all in early season UL crappie fishing. There were also a couple of bluegills that beat 9".

We also did pretty well on medium sized sunnies and crappies on metal spoons, like smallest Phoebes last spring, too, but not in the past few months. In a lot of the places we fish, they are often both present, even if usually not actually mixed.

Our lakes were close to 3' deeper last spring. Real dry here last summer. Our quarry all moved off to other structures this fall and we are having trouble finding them at present, and when we do they are keeping their heads down in what cover they can find on the bottom. Water quality has got to be way different now, too.