Do you consider "live" bait cheating?

[soflabasser]

20 minutes ago, reason said:

For reals? That shay cray! 

 

All day brother, all day. Not much to complain about live bait fishing on my end, especially when I lost count of +8 pounders I have caught throughout the years. Beats fishing in Iowa over hardwater for sub 5 pounders any day!

On 12/7/2018 at 11:49 AM, JWall14 said:

I think it would be good for kids...

I would say hiring a guide would be good for kids or anyone who needs help in fishing. Nothing wrong in that if you do not know how to fish a certain area by yourself just like there is nothing wrong with a legal form of fishing.

18 hours ago, JustALineWetter said:

 

Fishing for me is a relaxing past-time, it's not the be-all and end-all of my world

Sometimes I'll just plop a worm or minnow on the line, attach a bobber, toss it out there, and sit back and relax.

This is my 'zen place', where the sounds of water lapping at the hull of my canoe combined with the occasional call of a loon relaxes me.

I see bass fishing as a relaxing past time as well but some bass fishermen are elitist and think they are the next champion bass fisherman so they only fish with lures. These elitist bass fishermen are the type of fishermen I don't invite fishing with me and instead I fish with open mined people.

[WRB]

I wrote my 1st letter to the editor regarding live bait fishing during the spawn as being unsportsmanship behavior in 1969. That letter was published and I got all shorts if nasty replies as a result. I carried my crusade about outlawing the use of live golden shiners, crawdads, waterdogs, bluegill etc during the spawn for a few years and it was a futile effort.

Every spawning period boats would target big female bed bass using live bait with stringers of big bass floating belly up like tether balls on a rope, sickening for me to watch the slaughter year after year until most big bass populations crashed from being over harvested in our under 2,000 acre small trophy bass lakes. Today the giant bass population is gone, only a few are caught each year. The reasons are never over harvest, always the drought or poor management or some other excuse. When you kill your trophy bass population during the spawn by catching a PB then having it mounted or showing it off till it is over stressed and dies, it's gone forever.

I watch bass fishing guides using live Shad or crawdads for thier clients nearly ever outing during the spring and just look the way, it's their fishery as much as mine so why loose sleep over something you can't control. Live bait fishing in general isn't an issue, my only grip was  spawn and bed fishing for bass, after the spawn live bait has little advantage over artifical lures.

Tom

[soflabasser]

The bass fishing guides in Florida use live bait as well and I understand why they do it since their salary is based on giving clients the fish they want to catch. Very few people will be happy with a guide that is not good at putting clients on big fish (fish that surpasses the client's current PB bass) or at the very least rare species of fish. People expect to catch memorable fish with a guide since they are paying hundreds of dollars to fish for only a couple hours. With that said there are guides in Florida that do ok with only lure fishing with clients but the vast majority of guides down here use live bait to increase the chances of catching a memorable fish.

On 11/14/2009 at 7:49 PM, RoLo said:

Show me an angler who believes that fishing live bait is easy and requires no skill,

and I'll show you an angler who has limited experience with natural bait.

Every winter in Florida, my wife and I fish native shiners in addition to artificial lures.

Two years in a row, the spro aruku shad has outfished natural bait.

However, the odds of boating a truly outstanding trophy are favored by natural bait...how bad is that?

Roger

Well said @RoLo. Your old post is still relevant for this subject. Not sure if you are still reading this forum but you are one of my favorite members of this forum. A person who plans on bass fishing in Florida or lives in Florida would be wise to read and learn from what you write.

[haggard]

(tournament rules aside)

 

Fish naturally eat live bait. Using artificial lures should be considered cheating.

 

But artificials are cheap, convenient, reusable, last a long time, and you can stick them in a tackle box for weeks and bring them back out and they still work. Can't really do that with live bait.

 

[greentrout]

 

[Crappiebasser]

20 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I also forgot to mention that catching live bait can be fun and challenging 

Teaching someone that's never been around one to use a casting net is better than anything on tv. 

[J Francho]

On 12/7/2018 at 11:15 PM, reason said:

Crushing it!...

Content is my side hustle. 

[ratherbfishin1]

On 12/7/2018 at 3:32 PM, ratherbfishin1 said:

THANK YOU!

There’s nothing wrong with it in my opinion I just wouldn’t even compare it to the fishing most of us do.

I would like to apologize if this was harsh and offended anybody.  I was not intending for it to be a negative thing.  I was going through my ice fishing stuff seeing if I have to restock and I remembered how much I use wax-worms.?

[Choporoz]

On 12/7/2018 at 9:14 PM, slonezp said:

 ALL freshwater fish follow the same rules.

I need a copy of that rulebook. 

 

 

I wouldn't criticize anyone for following regs and fishing the way they want if it doesn't disrupt others.  

[slonezp]

2 hours ago, Choporoz said:

I need a copy of that rulebook. 

 

 

I wouldn't criticize anyone for following regs and fishing the way they want if it doesn't disrupt others.  

Ill sell you mine for the low low price of 29999599.95

[Bankbeater]

No way it’s cheating. Fishing with live bait has its own ups and downs. The biggest drawback I can think of is trying to keep the bait alive. You don’t have to worry with artificial baits. 

[bigbill]

In the beginning when I started bass fishing we used live minnows at the cost of $50 a week with night crawlers. I started using two rod setups one livebait and one tossing lures. I almost lost the baited rod a few times. Finally I got good with lures and started out fishing the livebait rod. Then I spent $50 on new bass lures. 

 

I do stop fishing and help show kids kids how to fish. I fish from shore. I fish the smaller bodies of water.

[hawgenvy]

I don't have the patience for bass fishing with shiners, staring at that cork forever, going cross-eyed, waiting for something to happen. At least with lures your doing something most of the time. And you're not injuring, or killing, two fish simultaneously just for sport.

[MN Fisher]

4 minutes ago, hawgenvy said:

I don't have the patience for bass fishing with shiners, staring at that cork forever, going cross-eyed, waiting for something to happen. At least with lures your doing something most of the time. And you're not injuring, or killing, two fish simultaneously just for sport.

One thing you may consider. The minnows at the bait store will end in one of two ways,

 

1) Used as bait by a fisherman.

2) Die in the tank and be disposed of.

 

They're slated to die anyway, why not get some use out of them instead of wasting them. They can't be returned to where-ever they were harvested from, it's against the rules of the State Department of Natural Resources (or whatever your state's equivalent is)

[burrows]

On ‎12‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 8:49 AM, reason said:

For reals? That shay cray! 

 

[N Florida Mike]

Ive live bait fished a lot. It's not cheating if you dont break any laws. It takes twice the work if catching your own bait , and in some cases, twice the patience. To me, there is not much difference in gut hooking fish with live bait than artificials. I started using circle hooks, which get less gut hooks than other hooks. If a fish is gut hooked , I carefully work to get the hook out without injuring the fish. But I get just as many if not more gut hooks using flukes as opposed to live bait.

Sometimes I just get in the mood to live bait fish, and usually just do it out back when I dont feel like going out. It is a relaxing way to fish , just catching a little bream , hook him on, throw him out, and wait for a response. It sometimes doesnt take very long.

I dont do it much anymore, but it's fun to go out and fish with bream or shiners , almost like you would artificials. Cast em out in clear areas with no cork ( or with one ) wait a minute or so, then reel in , cast to a new spot, and repeat. You will likely do very well.? Just let the big mamas go !!.

[the reel ess]

I see no problem with  me using live bait. ?

For all others, it's cheating. LOL.

Seriously, if I caught the bass of a lifetime on live bait, it would still be swimming anyway.

So what's the harm? But I don't do it because it's more trouble to handle on a kayak. I don't usually even use live bait for bream or crappie.

[NYWayfarer]

Using live bait is not cheating.

 

I fish artificial baits 90% of the time now. I was brought up fishing for Bass, panfish and saltwater species with live bait. I can only speak for myself when I say there are times when artificial baits have done better for me than live baits.

 

If it were cheating in some cases it would be like copying the stupidest kid in school's answers to the math test.

[Fishingmickey]

Man O man, a dozen water dogs and rod rigged with 20-25# line. Yaaah, that'd work.

FM

[Paul Roberts]

Definitely not. Satisfying skills can be developed all kinds of ways. Inserting yourself into the food chain, and interacting with wild critters, is simply an awesome thing to do.

 

That said, I fish artificials almost 100% of the time now. Gotta choose how to spend your precious fishing time. 

[Boomstick]

It's only cheating when fishing a tournament where it's against the rules! Also, let's not forget there are plenty of times when artificial lures will outfish live bait as well and at times quite heavily too in the same location on the same day and with the same person fishing it, which suggests that it does not necessarily give you some sort of unfair advantage.

 

Myself, the reason I prefer artificial lures over live bait is the same reason I prefer fishing for bass over say trout or catfish, which is that bass are reaction strikers and with artificial lures, you are responsible for giving it the proper action for the fish at that day. It makes it basically more interactive and engaging that way. They're also easy as I can grab my tackle bag and go!

 

[Dwight Hottle]

 

 

 

 

I cheated twice. I apologize to any one I have offended.  

[Paul Roberts]

Well, Dwight. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. 

[Arcs&sparks]

1 hour ago, Boomstick said:

Myself, the reason I prefer artificial lures over live bait is the same reason I prefer fishing for bass over say trout or catfish, which is that bass are reaction strikers and with artificial lures, you are responsible for giving it the proper action for the fish at that day.

You do realize that trout and catfish are aggressive predators too, that hit artificial lures, lol

[Boomstick]

48 minutes ago, Arcs&sparks said:

You do realize that trout and catfish are aggressive predators too, that hit artificial lures, lol

Oh, absolutely! But when fishing live bait or even power bait, if there's trout within a few feet they just smoke it right up. They're scent feeders where bass are not, so I'm much more likely to use live or dead bait with catfish or trout for that reason. I'm also more likely to keep trout and catfish as well.