I have always loved fishing for Small Mouth Bass year round. I have found with my Journal the biggest ones in the Spring always fell to the live fresh water Crawfish as my live Bait of choice. Use a single full circle style hook like Eagle/Claw 2/0 bronze color on about 8lb test Berkley Trilene X/L Monofilament, no swivel or snap connection. Small spit/shot non/lead is allowed in strong current or really deep freshwater. Hold on for the sudden Smash on you're live bait. There is nothing compared to a nibble about this type of fishing. Buy, or I prefer to catch my own at night with a flashlight in the low water Reeds, Weeds or Rock Piles along the shoreline. Native Crayfish or the transplanted Green Asian ones that are invasive to the natives will catch them. Snip off some of weeds and put them in with the crawfish to stop fighting and killing each other and to provide them with a cense of cover. The first time I threw one out, the pole was nearly ripped out of my hands with the force of the 4 pound Bronze Back. Along a dock the same reaction played out on a Large Mouth Bass at 5 lbs.
Crayfish are one of my favorites and they also work great on bigger Brown Trout and now my (Secret) huge Catfish along the rivers, just below the Dams and around any spring wood log jams from the Winters past.
With the high cost of bait and the time to catch you're own, I have developed a way to keep live crayfish alive for weeks in you're basement of garage, shed. Just pick up a rectangle flat style plastic storage bin, like the won you're wife has for her sweaters under your bed. I did not say to test her container with the live bait while putting her sweaters in the closet on hangers thinking that she would forget she did it. Do not forget the lid and to puncture it with many air holes for the live bait.
Put just enough cool water in the container to cover the critters about 3/4 of the way up. They do not have to be covered to stay healthy for your next experience on the water.
I call them my money bait every spring during the pre- spawn time when the big females are just starting to stage while the smaller male beach runners are up close house cleaning for another fresh water season, My personal best is a 6lb. 13oz beauty I landed at Ashumet Pond in Barnstable, Mass. on a 5/8 Black Broken Back Fred Arborgast Jitter Bug on a full moon night in May. Three casts with five minute breaks in between to finally catch my quarry. To fast, missed, to slow and she threw it ten feet. I then got out of the water at 1:45pm and went to shoreline and walked right into a family of Black and White Stinky Kitty Cats.
Back in the water with my summer cut-downs and retrieved the famous lure in between the two previous attempted speeds and was rewarded with a back flipping "Ballet" that will last me a Lifetime ! Wayne
P.S. I took the Beauty to Mako's in Buzzards Bay in a homemade livewell and had her weighed and we took a couple of scales and sent them to the Mass. Dem and a few weeks later I received A beautiful Bronze Pin and a report that had determined the Fish was 13 Years old. I guess she was a Teenager ! She was released un-harmed in her exact same spot near her special rock and I looked close at her and only saw a single hook of my rear treble and I wonder till this day if it the only time this Teenager was ever landed !
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| My (Secret) bait for Bigger Cats, Don't tell anybody ! |
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| Native or Green Invasive ones now in the Area |
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| Perfect Size, Leave the sweaters in it ! Go buy you're own! |
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| Twenty fish or more around this natural log jam. |
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| Two Cats, I big Pickerel and two Largemouth ! |
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| As soon as they hit the Water, Bang, BANG, |
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| I learned this trick on the Gazza River, Mapleville,R.I. AT 7yrs. old |
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| Darn it ! My last two Crayfish! Two more hungry Bass ! |
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