Live Minnow Fishing For Smallmouth

[Al Agnew]

Right or wrong, around my part of the Ozarks, minnow fishing means meat fishing. Everybody I ever knew or saw fishing minnows was keeping every legal bass they could...and some were keeping illegal ones. It's almost like it's a mindset...live bait means meat on the table (or just fish on a stringer).

I fished a lot with live bait for stream bass up until I was about 16 years old. Then I discovered that with the right lures and techniques I could catch just as many and perhaps more with artificials, and since then I've almost never fished live bait except for walleye and catfish. I definitely got good enough to not (usually) hook them deep. But...unlike many artificials, it does take practice and knowledge not to hook fish deep with live bait. I believe that's the rationale behind live bait restrictions on some trout waters; you can't guarantee that everybody will be proficient enough to not hook them deep, so you limit it to artificials because there's less likelihood of deep hooking, not because it doesn't happen at all.

Most fun live bait fishing I ever did was when I could find big northern studfish (the common species of Ozark topminnow). Put one on a weightless hook, lob it to where a bass might be, and if the bass comes for it the topminnow leaps out of the water repeatedly with the bass chasing it like crazy. It drove nice smallies totally nuts, and about drove me nuts trying to keep from setting the hook in all the commotion.

[Markhat]

Woodman, Still enjoying paddling the brazos river dory you built. Need to replace some of the closed cell foam sheets but having trouble finding it. Any tips where I could find some? A squirrel got in my barn and chewed on it.