Brownies And Sculpins

[Ferguson Bills]

Caught a very nice brownie this morning at parkers off of a dead sculpin that I found. Normally I fish my countdowns when I fish below the dam but for some reason I decided to tie on a hook and cast it out within minutes I landed it. My question is though what is the best way to catch sculpins and has anyone used the storm wild eye sculpin lure.

[drew03cmc]

Just a heads up, using live or dead bait for trout is highly frowned upon here and it could be highly illegal as well.

[rps]

Some may frown at using bait, but it is legal in all but a few areas. Check the regs. Parker Bottom is between the 100 yard limit below dams and Houseman and the regs specifically state it is allowed. However, I urge you to only use barbless circle hooks to reduce the chance of serious injury to the fish. Assuming you will, sculpin are not hard to catch. Sculpin will bite very tiny bits of worm on small hooks dangled near an under rock opening.

[Gavin]

Dead sculpin is a hard bait to beat. They like chunk rock and eat what RPS said. Use a circle hook with no offset.

[Ferguson Bills]

Yeah I looked up the regulations before I tried it and I used a circle hook with no barb. Like I said, I am no bait fisherman no patience for posting up and sitting still, it just amazed me how quickly it took the bait. I will say that I am rather intrigued by the storm wild eye sculpin lure. Looks very realistic. Sorry if I upset anyone for stating I used dead bait.

[Ffer]

As long as it is legal in the area you are fishing, (not sure about Ark regs, but not many places in MO where they are allowed. - gotta find those yourself - sculpins are a great bait for browns) Frowned upon ?-- frown away. Sculpins I find are usually in fairly swift clean cold water. Under med to med large rocks. Similar to crawfish habitats. I normally will use a small net (i.e. aquarium type.) to get them. A south MO guide/outfitter advised to cut into them down one side of the backbone and then the other side. (sort of like butterflying them) Leaving the fillets hanging. I also recommend the circle hooks but even when I haven't used them , I have rarely gut hooked a fish. And I'm not sorry if I have offended

anyone saying I used dead sculpins for bait because I'm not offended when anyone uses a fly under a cork (oh sorry- indic-ator)

[hoglaw]

Haven't used them in a while but used to do it a lot. Take a tiny tiny hook, but a tiny piece of a night crawler on it, put a tiny split shot an inch above the hook, wrap the line around your finger and go dangle it under over hung rocks. Have a net or cup in your other hand. Just dab it around the corners of the big over hung rocks and the sculpins wwil grab it. Raise them up a little and scoop with the net or cup. Repeat until your heart is content.

[Beaverdamstore]

Sculpin work very well and are very legal where you were. Try them at night in the riffles and where they dump into the slower pools. Dead drift them across the bottom. That way it doesn't feel like posting up and waiting. :-)

Jim