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Posts: 268
Location: Central Pennsylvania | What do yinz guys use when fishing water with lots of bullheads and carp? My river system is chock full of the ol' freshwater bonefish and bullheads so I'd love to know what your "go-to" baits would be in this situation
Second question- do muskies even eat bullheads??? |
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Posts: 372
Location: On the River | Yes Muskie will eat Bullheads and carp |
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Posts: 268
Location: Central Pennsylvania | Sorta makes me want to try fishing some live bullies on the bottom instead of my usual dead creek chubs. |
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Posts: 1294
| There are several water bodies, that have bullheads as the primary muskie forage. |
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| Guy I knew many years ago used bullheads instead of suckers for fall live bait fishing and did well. He said they were tougher than suckers. Would cut the top spine off with a side cutters, felt that made them more likely to get eaten.
Have never tried them as live bait but growing up a block from the Wis. River when it was an industrial sewer back in the 1960s, I know they are tougher than a $5 steak. When we were in middle school, 3 or 4 of us would have a contest, see who could catch the most in a given time period. Keep them in piles on the grass. After a couple hours, count them up and then kick them back in the river. Almost without exception, they would swim away. |
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Posts: 761
| Match the hatch. There are baits made in carp and bullhead color patterns. Gold and copper,brown and yellow, and especially try cranks with orange bellies. Kdawg |
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Posts: 268
Location: Central Pennsylvania | I'm contemplating trying them for livebait cause I hate using the big gills near my house for bait and suckers are impossible to get. dead creek chubs on the bottom have caught like 5/7 of my total fish this year though. Next question is how should I rig a bullhead? |
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Posts: 1425
Location: Brighton CO. | Rainbow flowage or anything hooked to the Wisconsin River has Bullheads and the Wisconsin River or any hooked to the Wisconsin has Muskies and they are fat! |
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Posts: 268
Location: Central Pennsylvania | I suppose I could also try trout as bait considering it is the opening day real shortly. Anyone ever try trout as bait? I use deadbait too so maybe those would be good cause they're oily like chubs, carp, suckers, bullheads, etc. |
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Posts: 372
Location: On the River | Trout will work, when suckers get hard to come by bait shops in northern Wisconsin also sell trout I’m sure there’s some YouTube videos showing how to rig them |
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Posts: 1425
Location: Brighton CO. | Here in Colorado using Trout in a illegal, back in my Muskie INC days if we had a outing on a good Muskie lake someone would get a Muskie but if we had a outing on a lake with Trout and they just stocked it forget it no reason to hit our lures with all the feed in the water. |
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Posts: 224
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota | One of the rivers I grew up fishing in SE mn has bullhead and other rough fish as the main forage base for musky/other predators and those fish grew incredibly fat. I remember listening to someone talk about a stomach content survey that was done on the ottawa river and bullhead was the most common forage base.
I was actually thinking about trying them as live bait a couple days ago. Growing up I spent some time fishing for flathead and by far the best bait was bullhead due to how tough they were. You could be fishing 85 degree water and they would last as long as 3-4 suckers. For states who can run more then one rod it would definitely open up an opportunity for summer live bait fishing |
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Posts: 268
Location: Central Pennsylvania | I tried trout at one point and i remember them being very easily killed, that's why i figured I'd use them as deadbaits. I'm thinking a live bullhead on the bottom might smack the big tigers! |
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| Pa Tigers n trout - 4/4/2022 7:20 AM
I tried trout at one point and i remember them being very easily killed, that's why i figured I'd use them as deadbaits. I'm thinking a live bullhead on the bottom might smack the big tigers!
Worth a try for sure. Not sue how you would rig. If your state allows a single hook rig, I would go with a big circle hook. Thing to remember on those is to not "set the hook".
John Gillespi and his partner were catching 100# bull sharks last week on live bait last week and all, big and small, hooked right in the corner of the mouth. |
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Location: PA Angler | I’m a big fan of making my own plastic lures and flies. I’ve been getting a lot of action on curly tail lures so I went and bought myself a injection mold that looks like a catfish, had luck with the one I made look like a channel cat.
As for trout I’ll make game changers that all look like trout to bass. Haven’t had any luck yet but I really didn’t have a heavy enough fly rod but now I should since I just built a 10wt this winter.
Gotta figure out how to posts pics. Lol |
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Posts: 8788
| Those things are pretty indestructible. I remember as a kid seeing what I thought was a bass in the process of eating a bullhead. You could see the tail sticking out of it's mouth swimming like mad trying to get away. As it got closer something seemed off. The bass wasn't moving or trying to swallow its prey, and it was swimming towards the surface. When it finally got close enough where I could grab it I saw what was really going on. Yes, the bullhead was alive. Top fin through the lip. side fins stuck in the mouth on each side. The bass, however, was not swimming. I'm not a forensic scientist or anything but based on the smell, bloating and skin falling off it was more than a few days dead. I freed the bullhead looking none the worse for wear.
As for how to rig them? I'd say a single hook rig with the hook through the skin like you do with a sucker. Wouldn't slow 'em down much. As for the other end? Hmm. Maybe a small brass hook through the skin just behind the head?? Not sure you could get a hook through the lip or a rubber band through the nostrils like you can with a sucker. Maybe something with a rubber band around the gill area? Pretty sure they'd work either way unless muskies have learned to avoid them, which I doubt.
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