In a major river here one of my buddies was ice fishing and caught a 10" long mud puppy. This kind of suggests another bait for bass. I think I purchased both sizes that river2sea offers. I haven't tried them yet. I'm wondering if mud puppy's are in every body of water? Do you fish with mud puppy's? Or ever catch them?

This could be the connection between bass and lizzards? Have you ever seen a lizzard in the water. Mud puppy's eat bass eggs.

Search for "river2sea mud puppy" go to you tube and search water dog, mud puppy, .

Any thoughts?

River2sea calls them nest raiders or waterdogs

Another point is don't be afraid to tie a 8" plastic lizzard on too.

Btw river2sea has the #190 nest raiders for $5.

EBay has the smaller ones 2/$9 look at the offers.

When we were kids we'd catch crawdads in the creek, underneath rocks. Every now and then we'd catch a salamander(mostly spotted salamanders), sometimes one with "feathers". One of our friends dad called them Hellbenders. I think it's the same thing as a mud puppy. We'd seine up creek chubs too, hook them in the nose and just throw them out there, and let the bass do the rest.

Good times Bill

Yes hellbenders I've heard that name too.

I just ordered longer lizzards to match the mud puppy colors. And creature baits.

There's another name for them. This one is kept as a pet I think it's white.

Search for; is it a hellbenders or mud puppy

Lot of info in this article. There two different salamanders or animals. Interesting.

They are pretty common in the Mississippi River. I've seen some that were pretty impressive as far as a Mudpuppy goes in the 24+ inch range caught walleye fishing below a dam in the tailraces during the fall on a Jig/plastic in deep water. I don't recall if I've ever caught one bass fishing but I've snagged a few during the summer on wingdams. Bass eat them.It's the reason that lizards are a very popular bait on the river; especially for smallmouth. 

 

They are disgusting. 

You guys remind me of something I've been wanting to try: getting some kind of punching skirt that I can pull over the head of of a fat plastic lizard to make it look like a mean old egg-stealin' mud-puppy. Hellbenders and mud-puppies are salamanders that keep their feathery gills beyond the larval stage and so can live underwater throughout adulthood. You add some gills to a lizard and you've mimicked Mrs. Bass's enemy #1. Gotta try a gilled salamander lure one of these days! During spawning season.

 

I think that white one bigbill was talking about earlier is the Mexican axolotl, also a mud-puppy-like salamander from central Mexico. They are used kind of like aquatic lab rats by biology researchers.

We them water dogs, the real name is tiger slamamnder.

Tom

We them water dogs, the real name is tiger slamamnder.

Tom

A tiger salamander is a different animal from an actual water dog or mud puppy. Tiger salamander larvae look similar to a mud puppy, but transform into the adult salamander and lose their gills. Mud puppies live their entire life under water and never lose their gills. Probably splitting hairs to try to imitate one versus the other in most situations though. I doubt I could tell the difference between the two in the water. 

Where I live there aren't salamanders/mud puppies/hellbenders/newts/ajolotes; the next would be asking me if I fish with soft plastic lizards, the answer is YES, and I do catch a bunch of fish, there have been moments I ran out of Brush Hogs, lizards make an excellent substitute. Now you might ask yourself how come them baits work in places where bass have never seen them, the answer is pretty simple ......... Bass don't give a rat's rear end about "matching the hatch"

Maybe they are were we never seen them. The map on that sight I said to search shows they go up to the vt Canadian border and around the great lakes. While another species is limited. But yet there scarce in Maine.

Now I wonder why no plastics manufacturer has made a larger, thicker fat body lizzard to mimic the size of these nest robbing large salamanders.

Sometimes color matters and sometimes they would bite a bare hook I swear.

Google soft plastic water dog lure, lots of choices.

Tom

Big Freaking Lizard?

Fliptail Liz-zard

The mexican ajolote looks like this:

 

 

Unfortunately it is an endangered species and it´s limited to what´s left of the original lake on which Mexico City is built, so it´s range is extremely limited to a few places, Xochimilco used to have a good population but apparently they are gone and the only place with a good population left is the Canal de Cuemanco. The interesting thing is that when I was a kid aquarium stores in Mexico sold them as pets, they were very common.

 

Mann´s used to manufacture a "lizard" that resembled them: Augerlizard, I still have several left.

 

I've got a few packs of Strike King Iguanas that are pretty large.  I don't know if they still make them or not.

Bogs makes big and fat (13"+) lizards.

Thanks I just placed an order at bogs. Got the big ones.

My motto is big baits big bass.

I ordered river2sea nest raiders, zoom 8 1/2" lizzards too.

Strike King used to (and maybe still does), make a 10" lizard called the Iguana. I wanted some to take to Mexico but never got my hands on any until after we came back. 

Thanks I just placed an order at bogs. Got the big ones.

My motto is big baits big bass.

I ordered river2sea nest raiders, zoom 8 1/2" lizzards too.

The R2Sea 8" nest raiders have monster size hook, bigger than I use for marlin!

The Optimum 10" water dog works good, the soft plastic doesn't fill the basses mouth like a giant gum ball some other big lizards do that require 11/0 hook.

Good luck!

Tom

Thanks Tom just ordered some optimum 10" wd too.

The optimum water dogs showed up today there awesome.

Thanks Tom.