craigaria

The water temp last sunday was 52. The live bait bite is dying down with the warmer temps. The last few trips out this past week we did well fishing rattletraps and jerkbaits. This week they should really turn on after this cold front passes through... Good luck it won't be long now

I took two of my buddys out and did the live bait thing. They fish the same lake as me and they usually have a hard time catching fish out there. It was nice to put them on some fish! They were jumping up and down and high fiving all day ;D We boated 21 fish, the biggest was 7 1/2 lbs. I considered it my firt sucessfull trip guiding, unpaid though :

Full Throttle 8-)

Did you catch anything? ;D

The biggest skill of all in bass fishing is to be able to locate active fish, and and figure out what they will bite. Just because you have a bucket full of live bait doesn't mean you can just put one on the hook and automatically catch fish. You can drag shad or throw lures around the lake all day, but if you can't locate the fish or establish a pattern, you may not catch fish with either. The real skill is learning the water that you are fishing, and learning the habits of the fish. Then you will be more successful no matter what kind of bait you are using... Just to set the record straight, I fish with artificials all the time. If I had a choice between catching a trophy on live or artificial, I would choose artificial. But if I caught the world record bass on live bait, I still would of caught the world record

Personally, I think it does takes skill to catch fish with live bait. For me live bait taught me a great deal about using my electronics much better and also helped me discover the main forage of the bass in my lake and what they prefered. Live bait fishing has helped me to redefine my tactics to help me catch bigger fish on artificials. I understand that there is alot of predjudice against live bait fisherman in bass fishing. But think about this. The next time you are having a hard time watching not so skilled anglers slamming bass with live bait, just remember that they are catching fish and you aren't. Learning different techniques that helps you boat more bass is skill, watching them catch a lot of fish and putting them down for it is hard headed...

I am from Ga, and the best advice I have for you is to fish as much as possible for the next month. The fish are really starting to turn on with all of the warm weather we have had lately. I saw 57 degree water today, and the bass were starting to school up on the surface this morning. Throw rattletraps, shad raps, and spinnerbaits right now and cover alot of water. Once you find the fish, and the fast baits aren't getting hit anymore, cover the area with plastics. You should be putting some bass in the boat real soon! Good Luck

I think what everyone else had said about corporate sponsors from artificial lure companies holds true, also bass are easily caught on artificials, most of the time, bass are a very aggressive fish... As far a live bait goes compared to artificials, recentley I learned to fish with shad and I have caught two 10 lber's and probably 25 fish over 7 lbs in the past 3 weeks. Unfortunately with the warmer water recently, the bait is harder to find, and I have been doing all my catching on artificials ;D

I did that 2 days in a row > Both times I had on a hat and the treble hooks went through my hat and into my head. I had my buddy use pliers and rip the hooks out (very painful) :-/ It happened because I was using a 4 foot rod and a rapala jerkbait. When I would cast overhand, the rapala would come very close to my head. Needless to say, after two days of trebles in the head, I retired that little rod

I caught a purse one day and inside of it were 4 six inch catfish :-? No money though

It is an awesome feeling to take my girl on the lake and see the look on her face when she is fighting a good bass! The bad part is her talking smack afterwards : JK

;D ;D Now thats funny! I think I like it

Thanks for the update! Let us know how you do out there in your future trips. It will be nice to have an idea of what the fish are doing before we all head that way

Went fishing again today and all went well... I knew it was going to be a good day when the first cast with the net came up with two good fish and around 300 or so shad It was slow at times, but it really turned on in the evening when all the bait was blown up against the bank and the bass went crazy! I managed to boat a couple with a shad rap too... The goofy look on my face in this one is because a fish just nailed my other pole and was about to break my rod ;D

;D I am now offically a "low budget hooker" ;D

Marbin farms is open to the public, it has been for around 15 years I guess. I fished there the day it opened when I was 16 years old, I think. I haven't fished there in a few years, but I am sure it is still good. Me and my buddy won a tourny there a few years back with one fish. 9lb 6oz. I loved lake margery and bennett, and the best fishing I ever had out there was on shepard, one of the smaller lakes with the handicap access. Lake Margery holds 2 of the biggest bass ever caught in GA. I bet it was the best fishing ever before it was opened up, you are a lucky guy to have fished there Thanks for the compliment on the fish! 8-)

Does that make me a bass ho'? ;D

Ahhh, it looks like the fish are paying you back for your sacrifice of your combo

Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to the fish gods The best day I have ever had my friend dropped his brand new $400 digital camera in the lake first thing in the morning. We ended up catching 48 fish. 15 of them were over 7 lbs. I think the fish felt sorry for him for making such an expensive sacrifice and repaid him with the best day ever. Hopefully your lost combo will come back to you in the form of big bass. But I wouldn't suggest throwing expensive stuff in the lake hoping for the bite, the bass know when you are doing it on purpose ;D

I went back to the lake today to fish with artificials. I figured I'd take a 5 gallon bucket in case I found the bait. I was only going to keep a few shad and give them a try. Well guess what, I found the bait right off the bat and first throw I netted around 400 or so shad The bad part was that they didn't live in the little bucket I knew I should of taken the bait tank. Skunked : Go figure...

' I can't complain And like Blue Eye said, I am taken. So stop with all the PM's asking me out ;D

The biggest shad were catching the biggest fish. These were threadfins, and the biggest were 5" to 6" long. We caught fish with the smaller shad too, but they weren't as big

If the water temp is cold, the bait should be schooled up in deeper water. You have to use your fishfinder to locate the shad. You will have to cover alot of water to find the bait school. On your finder, the bait will look like a ball if your boat is moving fast. Slow down and go back over the area, and the bait will almost black out the screen when you are above them. When we found the bait school the other day, it was fooling the fishfinder into believing it was only 5 foot deep. In reality it was really 17 foot deep. Once you are over the bait, now is the time to throw the net. As far as casting the net, it isn't too hard with a little practice. Do a search on youtube on casting nets, and there are a few good instructional video clips on there. Be sure to buy a good quality net. The one I have is a Bett's 8 foot net with 1/2" mest. It was $65 at bass pro. If you get a good cast into the school, you will catch way more bait than you need. You can be selective and keep only the biggest shad and throw the little ones back. You will need a sorting bucket and a bait tank to help keep them alive. I use a 5 gal bucket for the sorting tank. The sorting tank is necesary because the shad will regurgitate plankton when you catch them, so this bucket allows them to do this without ruining the bait tank water. Put about a handful of rock salt in the bucket and fill it with lake water. Dump your net into the bucket and pick the best shad and put them into the bait tank. Leave the shad in the bucket for a few minutes before putting them in the bait tank. It helps to have a round, aireated bait tank so the shad can swim in a circle, or else they will swim into a corner the whole time and kill themselves. Also the water temp in the tank should be less than 10 degrees differant from the lake water, use ice if necessary to cool down the tank. For the bait tank, use water out of your hose at the house. Depending on the size of the tank, use 1 to 2 handfuls of rocksalt, and a chemical like shad keeper, which they have at BPS too. Now for the fishing part When the bait is schooled tight like this, the bass won't be far away. You can actually see the fish on the finder if sitting still, they will look like horizontal lines moving throughout the school. Rig your pole like a carolina rig but use a 1 oz weight and about a 3 to 4 foot leader. You can use whatever hook you like, but we were hooking up better using a treble hook. Drop the rig straight down and count the depth your are putting the bait at. Use multiple poles and vary the depths on each to find where you are getting the most strikes. It helps to have rodholder, or else you might lose your rod and reel The hardest part is finding the bait, depending on how big your lake is it could take hours. Keep in mind too that I have just started fishing with this technique, and I am telling you what I learned from my friend who is a guide. There are many other ways to go about it, but this is what we were doing to take advantage of the cold water bait schools. As the water warms up, the big schools will break up and move to shallower water, so this technique probably won't work as good then. Sorry for the long post, just trying to tell you what I have learned so far... 8-)

Just to add to my last post. The 2 times that I have had a sucessful live bait trip, was when my friend who is a guide went with me. He is very skilled in using his electronics, finding baitfish and catching them, finding the fish, and catching fish with live bait. I have tryed to copy his technique with little success... Soon the bite will be on, and artificials will be the ticket when the warmer water spreads the fish out. But I will have to say that those two live bait trips were the most sucessfull cold water trips I've had.

I have just started fishing with live bait recently. Ya'll may have seen in fishing trip or outings. I have had the same discussion with buzzbaitfool and his opinion is that it isn't the same as catching fish on artificials. I will admit too that if I had the choice of catching a 10 lb plus fish on live bait or artificial, I would pick artificial... I'll tell you what though, if you want to catch some big fish consistantly, live bait is the way to go. Also, people that say live bait fishing is easy couldn't be more wrong. I can easily prove that with the sucess of my recent trips. Today I was skunked, yesterday I missed one good fish on a shad rap while looking for bait, and two trips last week I was skunked. It is very hard to find the bait. Once you do find the bait though you are still only halfway there. Then you have to find the depth and size bait they are prefering. Also, the bass may not be biting either. I think that live bait fishing is just another technique. I try to learn many different ways to catch fish and to be more sucessful. Live bait fishing teaches you really well how to make good use of your electronics, which in turn helps you find the fish, what they are feeding on, and also find other spots on the lake that you may have overlooked in the past.