The Massachusetts Wildlife governing body states that Pumpkinseed sunfish can be used as bait. I believe that these bream, as most call them, live side by side with bluegill. Does anyone know a sure way to tell them apart. The pics I've seen make pumpkins look speckled, where bluegill are not.

Has anyone used these as bait. I would think they would be a good big bass bait, since many bass waters are infested with sunnies.

I would figure that 3-5" small bream/pumpkinseeds would be the best bet, since any larger and the bass may not be able to swallow them.

Not to mention this will aid in the over populations of sunnies at the ponds I fish.

Hopefully this will let the minnow population boom, which probably provides bass with more food.

ill tell ya, last year all i used were a pack of orange worms, and sunfish for bait. we have many pumpkinseed/bluegill in most lakes i fish in, we used a cast net a few times. then we would fill the bucket and fish. CAUGHT my biggest fish with sunnies.

now this year i made it a pact to not realy use live bait, just want to try the real stuff and learn how to fish.

I find it funny that you refer to artificials as " the real stuff".

I like using lures once in a while, but I like to get the most out of my time on the water. If I had ambitions to fish tournaments any time soon and I needed to hone my skills with lures in order to compete, I would practice with lures more. But since I just fish recreationally, and between college and waiting tables 4 nights a week, I don't get a lot of time to fish.(classes during the day, work most nights and weekends) So I want the odds in my favor.

I know that livebait fishing is looked down upon by tournament guys who only(or most of the time) fish artificials, and I'm ok with that. But, in defense to people who live bait fish, locating the fish is the biggest part of success in fishing whether you bait fish or not. I will admit it takes a little extra to get a bass to strike an artificial, but most of the "fooling" the fish is done by the lure designers and not the fisherman.

Plus, I don;t have a boat with electronics to spot bait, fish, depth changes, structure, etc. SO I just go to a "good looking spot" and throw some bait and hope I was right.

It is a better rush though to get a strike while robotically retrieving your lure, more so than just watching your rod tip bounce or watching a float go down.

First off,I am a tournament angler and use artificials 100% of the time.WTS,there is nothing wrong with using live bait.I just like the sport of selling something that is not real to a bass.People should fish to their own satisfaction.If catching a 5lber on live bait,is a trophy to you then good for you,you should be proud of yourself.

As for your ?'s,pumkinseeds can be identified by there brilliant colors,especially the blue lightening streaks around the eyes.Just Goggle "Pumkinseed fish".

As far as size,I would try 3"-6".A bass can and will eat as big of a pumkinseed you will catch.

I will admit it takes a little extra to get a bass to strike an artificial, but most of the "fooling" the fish is done by the lure designers and not the fisherman.

I don't want to show any disrespect.There are lures with better actions but I disagree with this statment .

i caught a small bass aroun 14" down in south carolina on a 3" pumpkinseed. no different than using live bluegill as bait.

pumpkinseed usualy have bright blue squigly lines going behind theyre eyes and blue speckles all around them. also, pumpkinseeds dont have the "bars" that bluegills usually have. here are are a few pics of my pumpkinseed and my sisters boyfriends pumpkinseed (his is the one attached to the rod).

CJ, I didn't mean any disrespect.  I knew what you meant when you said the real stuff. I was just bustin them man  ;D I didn;t mean to upset anyone. I like catching fish on lures much more than bait, its just I feel that using bait gives me more of a chance to catch fish, and like I said I don;t get that much time to fish with work and school. Plus I'm restricted to shore which gives me another disadvantage. Not to mention two of the three ponds I bass fish in are heavily developed with houses and there are not too many places to fish from, let alone places that would hold bass. The third pond I fish is very small, probably a couple acres, its more of a marsh, but there are lots of bass. There is only one sport you can cast from shore there.

Once I get a decent boat, and I can cover more water, I will expand my use of lures and my skills in using them. I don't just bass fish either, which kind of puts me off to stocking up on tons of lures, even though the bait monkey did get me to drop about 300 this year...and I think I bass fished a dozen times.

I just like to fish, and since I'm shore bound most of the time, I fish for species that will be within casting distance from shoreline areas. Early Spring, it's trout and salmon,(even though they are stocked) late spring early summer its largemouth and other warm water fish that come into the shallows. In the summer I continue to fish bass but also go saltwater for Stripers. (I really only bass fish four months or five months out of the year. So guys up north here may go ice out to first ice, and guys down south might go all year long) Then in the fall in winter I go back for the trout and salmon.

Even though we both fish for bass, we are in two different catagories.

First off,I am a tournament angler and use artificials 100% of the time.WTS,there is nothing wrong with using live bait.I just like the sport of selling something that is not real to a bass.People should fish to their own satisfaction.If catching a 5lber on live bait,is a trophy to you then good for you,you should be proud of yourself.

I didn't mean that you were disrespecting anybody,you are not.I meant that "I"wasn't wanting to show disrespect for disagreeing with your point on artificial lures.I feel it's not the lure but the angler.Sure some lures,such as crankbaits,work well without much effort in the presentation.But there will always be something the angler is doing to entice a strike.

I will edit my post,sometimes I have trouble wording things correctly.I'm just a redneck with a computer that loves bassfishing.

dont worry about it man. Sometimes I word these incorrectly too, and it comes out in a way that someone could take offense too. I means sure a spinnerbait or something has the action built it. But for the most part, jigs, and plastics do take a substantial amount of skill to work correctly in order to entice a strike. I look up to tournament anglers, it's hard fishing for hours on end, especially when fishings tough. Keeping a positiv emental mind set during these times is what tournament fishing is all about. And anyone who can do that, regardless of what they use to cathc bass, is a heck of an angler in my book.

you guys need to check out mattlures.com he has some fantastic bluegill lures that look life like