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Posts: 102
Location: Bowling Green, KY | Anybody use anything besides suckers? Getting a live sucker in KY is harder than getting a musky. I was wondering about the possibility of a small white drum. I think they would be easier to acquire and are considered a rough fish, so there should be no legal issues. |
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Posts: 1270
| I assume that a white drum is what we call sheephead. If that's the case I would use one in a heart beat. Small carp would also work but I've never been able to really find small carp, only the bigger ones. Depending on the laws in your state walleyes and norhterns would also work well. |
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Posts: 1061
Location: Medford, WI | You bet...and it works. Muskies don't only eat suckers and look at half of the things we throw at them. Livebait/fish just have that extra flash in the water; we've had pretty unreal results on some lakes with livebait. As far as legality, I looked in the KY Fish & Wildlife Resources Fishing Regs. and you should be good to go as far as posessing and using white drum as bait as they are not a sport fish and I sure hope they're not an Endangered Spec. (However, I'm not sure what they would be considered as "minnows" are any fish besides sportfish, but it also says under 6". I would give it a whirl and see what you come up with. Any way to get some of those shad this time of year? I saw some pretty big ones down there this spring (on Cave)....those would be the ticket.
-Jake |
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Posts: 1061
Location: Medford, WI | Just saw reelman's post and wanted to mention that sportfish (walleyes, sauger, northerns, etc.) can't be used as livebait. Muskies don't eat walleyes or northerns anyways... |
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Posts: 1184
Location: Iowa Great Lakes | Depends where you live, we can and do use perch and bluegills for bait, in fact quite common in the fall for big smallmouth. Walleye and pike would work to, fact just recently had a 30" pike hit by a muskie boatside and caught a walleye a few years ago with a 9" bite pattern on it as well as missing a chunk out of its back.
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Posts: 102
Location: Bowling Green, KY | Thanks for the suggestions. Usually a piece of nightcrawler on the bottom in a back eddy around here is good for a small drum or two. Plus, bluegills can be had most of the time. I would like to up our chances by dangling a little protein over the side. |
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Posts: 1188
Location: Iowa | Creek Chubs if you can find them big enough...I've run across some legitimate 7-8 inchers bass fishing...
Big Perc |
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Posts: 1270
| Medford, using game fish depends on the state you are in. In Wisconsin they are legal as long as you catch them and consider them part of your daily bag. |
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| Muskies don't eat walleyes??? you have to be kidding----Go fish the castle rock dam in the spring-- I have the musky take walleyes every year up there--have also had it happen many times up on the turtle flambeau flowage in the spring---Maybe they don't eat them but they sure attack them when your bringing them in----I would use something different if it were me but they seem to like walleyes also. |
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| Some people can't quite see the sarcasm...
And yes, Reelman, it is legal in Wisconsin; I was just saying that it's not in Kentucky, which is where PT is from and wondering about. That's the reason I mentioned it was not allowed. Also, not legal in Minnesota or Canada...not sure about other states. |
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Posts: 280
Location: McFarland | I've never tried but I hear muskies love bullheads too. |
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| Big Freeking Goldfish...if they're legal of course. |
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Posts: 8834
| esox911 - 11/13/2009 11:28 AM
Muskies don't eat walleyes??? you have to be kidding----Go fish the castle rock dam in the spring-- I have the musky take walleyes every year up there--have also had it happen many times up on the turtle flambeau flowage in the spring---Maybe they don't eat them but they sure attack them when your bringing them in----I would use something different if it were me but they seem to like walleyes also.
They'll eat anything when its struggling on the end of your line, but that doesn't mean it's preferred forage for them...
According to all the research I have read, they prefer to eat soft, fatty, oily fish with a high fat content, like suckers or tulibee. I have heard of people using everything from perch to white bass to pike, with some success on all.
Where legal, I suppose this would be acceptable. But if I am going to kill a nice pike or a walleye? I'm not going to feed it to the muskies, I'm going to feed it to ME!  |
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Posts: 463
Location: Sw Pennsylvania | If i lost one walleye to a muskie then i've lost atleast a dozen. They love to smash them rite beside the boat!
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| I will agree with esoxaddict that the soft small scaled oily fish like suckers and minnows would be your best shot---If anything like that is available I would use them first--If not Perch / Bluegill / walleye are alll alternatives and a Musky will eat them. |
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Posts: 137
| Small catfish work, bluegills too. But suckers work the best for me in the fall. There are plenty of suckers in Indiana, I would bet there are lots in the rivers and creeks where you live too. They are an easy fish to catch if you take a little time to scout around in rivers to find where they are. Slower rivers with shallow flats between holes is where I catch them and they are easy. Chum the water for a couple days with hard corn and then go back and throw out a few lines with circle hooks on them. Run the worms up the hook and past it onto the line itself and keep some of the worm trailing off the hook, so it is long and straight. Leave your bail open and when your line starts running reel it in. If you find a good spot you can catch a lot of suckers. All you need to keep them for an extended length of time is a livestock water tank with a pump and filter. I got a pond powerhead and made a filter for it out of a plastic container so the water is drawn through a sponge and some carbon before going back into the water. Now I have free suckers that I can take to lakes that don't happen to have a baitshop that sells suckers nearby. Takes a little time to figure out, but it's not nearly as hard to learn as fishing for musky! Plus it's actually fun, some of the bigger suckers are good fighters and the bonus smallies, catfish and carp are fun to catch too. |
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Posts: 101
| Has any one tried Bullheads? |
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Posts: 135
Location: Irvine, KY | I gave some smaller bullheads a try one day.... no luck (id like to try some bigger ones) but they do struggle a lot and live all day on a quick strike. |
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Posts: 102
Location: Bowling Green, KY | I never thought of chumming them. I may have to give that a try.
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| let me slightly correct reelman. Due to VHS any gamefish caught for bait, must by caught on that lake to be used. Same goes for suckers. The suckers we buy in Wisconsin come from facilities known to be VHS free or they would not be allowed to be used in the state. |
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Posts: 1270
| Guest, I believe that technically that has always been the case since you could not transport life game fish anyway. |
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Posts: 443
Location: Indiana | For those of you that store them in tanks at your house. What do you feed them. I have heard that suckers will eat minnows, but that doesn't make much sense for a bottom feeding fish. |
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Posts: 3913
| I've tried bullheads on a quick strike rig. They are tough critters. Flathead guys like them because they last a long time in strong current at the head of a hole. |
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Posts: 137
| Feed them Mike?....yeah I feed them..to muskies. Actually I don't feed them, fish can go for a quite a long time without eating and not show any ill effects from it. And the colder the water, the less they need. I'm not keeping them as pets and only for a month or so, so I don't want to add any more waste to the water than is necessary. If I were keeping them for a couple months I would throw some sinking fish pellets in, they'll eat those just fine. But for something that I'm only keeping for a month there is no point. Next year I will probably stock up more heavily early on and I may feed them once or twice during the fall season, but that's about it. |
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Posts: 443
Location: Indiana | I am having muskie taste them this year, but eat them. NO. I have had pick ups, and an equal amount of drops. They are taking them, running, leaving teeth marks and letting go before we can get to the rod. Frustrating.
I am going to hit a local stream this weekend and try to catch some bait. Thanks for the tips. |
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Posts: 137
| Good luck Mike, and I asked Bill James last night if I was within the law catching my own bait and he said it was all good, so no worries. I think John posted the results from the meeting last night too. Oh, and he showed us a nice picture of a Brookville fish too, from the walleye netting this spring. They caught quite a lot of them inadvertently. We need to go down there sometime.
Edited by The Toad 11/20/2009 7:29 PM
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