OK guys & gals rather than high jacking Chris's thread lets discuss it here.

Whats everyones experience when it comes to using either fresh bait or the manafuctured baits. Personely over time I havn't had the best of luck with the Gulp products or any of them. But to be fair I gave them very little effort and its been a while since I tried any of it. Personely I am a huge bait fisherman probably 90% of my fishing for any species when legal is done with fresh bait. Whether it be worms, leeches, monnows or grubs of many types. Its just it seems to me that nothing beats the real thing. When it comes to walleye fishing I have seen times when a leech will out perform a shiner but the majority of the time a jig tipped minnow will out do about anything drug through the water for them. Mind you I have found in the south that at times its hard to beat a leech or worm drug on a bottom bouncer.

Whats everyones opinions on it ??

I use Glup 5 inch Jerkshads in Arkansas Shiner, Pearl White, and Anchovy all the time when pitching jigs, or snap jigging.  I also use Northland Slurpies Jerkshads in Pearl White too, and these baits are for fishing agressively.  In situations where due to being barbless, I can't keep a bait on my hook, they shine.  If I get bit and miss a fish, I know there is still the artificial on there, and fish hill hit it again.  They don't seem to hold it as long, so when they hit, you have to set the hook fast.  I also use them for more bulk of a presentation, and their profile matches bigger sized minnows.  I use the 3 inch Jerkshads and have been using the 3 inch Powerbait minnows for years.  These baits pick off the more agressive fish and I fish way faster and heavier while searching with them.  I use the Northland Surpies Mimic Minnow 3 inch shads too, and like their forage matching colors, especially the perch, emerald, and silver shiner.       

I use 3 inch Gulp Fry in Natural and Pumpkin color as a crawler trailer.  They work great onb 1/8 and 1/4 oz jigs, and have an awesome action.  I pitch and hop jigs back a lot, and these are my go to to downsize from the jerkshads.  They are not stocked in many places out here in Alberta.  These work very well on a slow death style rig behind a bouncer too.   

I rarely use live crawlers on spinner rigs anymore.  The Gulp ones just work as good, or better in many situations as they can't be pulled off or torn up by short biters, and I can fish more effectively and longer by not having to rebait frequently.  I know the difference in feel if I have my bait on after a bite or not, and if I have a small fish on being barbless, I will shake them off, or give the line slack so they get off and keep trolling hoping for a bigger bite, and a larger fish next.  I can stay down in the strikezone longer and fish it more effectively.  I also use the 5, 6 and 7 inch jerk shads on spinner rigs.  You need to upsize your hooks as well to get a bit through the plastic.  Don't be scared of 2/0 and 3/0 hooks, as the fish you will catch on these combo's are not!  Big fish eat big baits, and a 7 to 10 inch spinner profile is a nice meal for a 6+ pound fish.   

Rigging with real bait vs artificals is a no brainer, I ALWAYS use real baits if I can in those situations.  If I can't, I use a different presentation that is reaction instead of natural.  Sometimes you need finesse, and livebaits just can't be replaced. 

Water clarity, time of year, structure, and time of day are the biggest factors as well in selecting what baits I use.  If a lake is green like pea soup, and it's evening during the summer peak and I am fishing a shallow weed edge, I will go with plastics and pitch up shallow and hammer fish like crazy.  If it's the same lake in early spring, just after opener, I am going to drag a 1/8 oz jig with a leech very slowly.

In tournaments I use a lot of artificals, and during prefish spend time figuring out a program.  I might not fish a whole event with artificals, but I always have them ready to go, and sometimes for fish that have seen nothing but livebait, fishing artificals really agressively can get me a few extra fish when things get slow. 


Chris K   
         

Many years ago I tried the Berkely scented rubber worms where the Redwater runs into the NSR. I put them on a mepps spinner and I slaughtered some massive walleye in the 7-9lb range, they were hammering it. That being said I didn't use a real leech or worm there to test it against, but they seemed to work very well.

X2 Axeman...You cannot fool fish. Real Leeches have been around for thousands of years.
I have a hard time believing that the artificial bates work better.

X2 Axeman...You cannot fool fish. Real Leeches have been around for thousands of years.
I have a hard time believing that the artificial bates work better.

I think you may have read my comments wrong.  Fooling the fish is what it is all about and like I said the artificial scented baits do work quite well, just not quite as well as the real baits with my style of fishing.

Good thread walleyes, lots of info here.
Wish I could contribute but after years of being out of it I finally decided to get back in and am now learning about all the new baits and technics.
Keep er comin boys!

Quote from: walleyes on July 07, 2011, 05:48:33 PM

Good info boys.

Chris I am going to try out some of your tips if you don't mind..

One of these days we will have to get together and I can show you first hand.  I got a few spots I want to fish really badly to the north east of the city.   


Chris K

Yup your darn rights we will have to do it.. Have quite a few little gems of walleye holes we could venture to.

i dont know its a tough question but a good one. all my life i basically fished pike until recent years so for pike ya of coarse artificial over real just saying a len thompson red devil costs alot less than the amount ill spend on minnow tubes but now that im fishing a way more variety im honestly thinking pike might just be the only fish i can think of where artificial is better :s