Saturday, March 11, 2006

Live or Fake Bait?

by Ty Wagner

Many people look at me weird when I step on a pier at night and I have a little tackle box a bucket and a bait cast rod and reel. Well, thats all I need for night fishing at my favorite spots. I look at other anglers and you can see that they have there 15 gallon tanks filled with water and shrimp ready to fish the night away. Well that's all fine and dandy, but when the bite is on, this can become troublesome. I have seen many occasions where the person that has artificial will out fish the guy with the live shrimp.

Why? Anglers can cover more areas with artificial and change the depth of there lure when needed. Live bait takes longer to setup and get your new bait into the water. Just think about it. Cast your live bait into the water, then wait until something comes along and decides it wants to swipe at your bait. Well, wile the bait is now dead, the fish loose interest in the bait and swims away. Now you are faced with the fact that you have to put another live bait on the hook to try to get more fish. So back to the same process. Cast, sit, wait and finally you have caught a fish. Ounce you bring the fish in, you take it off the hook and then grab another live victim, but ooops!!! It slips out of your hands. Now while you are fumbling trying to get your live bait back in your hands and into the water.

The guy with the little tackle box and fake lures has thrown 15 cast and caught 4 fish to your 1 fish. See the difference? You waist time and fishing water when you have live bait. Don't get me wrong, I use live bait mostly when the conditions are ruff. High wind, cloudy water clarity, inactive fish and my favorite, the stubborn picky fish. These factors play a major role into picking live or fake bait. I also like to use lures when I am doing a quicky fishing trip. A few cast of the fake bait and that's all I need. Although having a combination can be good to have on a night fishing trip. It can also create more tackle to carry and more things to worry about. If you don't need live bait to catch your favorite fish, then don't buy it. You can save money buying less live bait and buying your favorite lure to fish with.


About the Author
Ty Wagner is the owner of http://www.texasfishinghome.com and loves to fish with his little tackle box filled with his favorite lures.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i dont think the issue is all about live bait or fake bait, it should be real bait or fake bait.

live bait simply lures the fish to eat the bait with the hook because of illusion. when a fake bait is used it tries to immitate the live fish , worm or shrimps which are attractive to thier predators.

on the other hand real baits are of two types, the live and the meat. if using live bait, its very clear the fish takes the bait because it is real and alive. while meat from fish are good baits because most fish, specially the big ones are carnivorous.

based on experience, baits are designed for specific types of fish.. just be sure select the proper bait.