Yes. I’ve done that too! The only thing is that the paste scent almost completely stops the action of the feathers because they get gummed up. Still works though.
I've used beaver tails before. Not much luck, but that was probably me, lol. I'm definitely going to check out the others, too. Thanks for the informative video.
That’s very cool. I’ve never ice fished even though I grew up in Wisconsin, but I remember live baits always being the best and most easily stolen off the hook. I graduated to lures in my teens, much to the disappointment of my mom, who stayed true to her cane pole and worms or live minnows. In California fishing saltwater, we’d use live grass shrimp or pile worms available at any bait shop. And again, you’d lose a lot more bait than the amount of fish you catch. Plus, the bait was more expensive than most anything you caught with it from shore. Still fun of course, but nobody was fishing with lures. I’d dragged my tackle box full of lures from Wisconsin all the way to California, just to be told they were useless unless you’re fishing freshwater. So live bait on a double hook drop shot rig was the way to go. Bummer. At least my Mepps spinners and Rapalas and Castmasters wouldn’t get rusty in the salt, so I kept them dry. I lived on boats in San Francisco Bay for 6 years and my lures from Wisconsin remained in pristine condition the whole time. Frustrating but kinda cool at the same time. Maybe they’ll be worth a lot as antiques since I couldn’t see using them in the foreseeable future. Then me and dad sailed his 30 foot Tahiti Ketch to Hawaii, and my tackle box from Wisconsin went along for the cruise. That’s about 4500 miles from Oshkosh now. To my surprise and delight, the Hawaiians used mostly lures from shore. Reef fish hit mostly top water baits or “squiggly tail” jigs running as fast as you can reel them. I showed my new fishing partner my lures from Wisconsin and he’d never seen anything like a Mepps spinner but assured me they would work. “Brah, deez fish hit anything you throw at dem. Day aggressive buggahs.” And yep, they nailed my Mepps and Rapalas and pretty much everything in my Wisconsin tackle box. (So much for keeping my Wisconsin lures as future antiques), as the hooks quickly went rusty. They use all stainless steel wire and hooks out there. All my Wisconsin lures were trashed within a couple weeks. The spinners wouldn’t spin after a while and the hooks were not even hooks anymore. So I replaced them with Hawaiian stainless lures but what we did was exactly like you’re doing in this video. Add a tough dead bait to the lures. Usually strips of squid for that scent trail and action but almost impossible for any reef fish to tear off the hook. 35 years of fishing lures in Hawaii and now I’m in Seattle. My Hawaiian lures won’t work here since these saltwater fish are cold and deep and it’s back to live bait again. Jigs work off the piers but you ain’t casting lures like in Hawaii or Wisconsin. Strange that Hawaii and Wisconsin style fishing has more in common than Washington in the salt. My new Seattle fishing buddy grew up here and showed me around all the lakes and ocean piers and I’d accumulated a bunch of lures in a new tackle box for freshwater and jigs for salt. I carried all this gear around but my buddy would only fish with night crawlers on a drop shot rig no matter if it was a lake or Puget Sound. He had one broken pole and crappy reel and a ziplock bag with a couple hooks, weights, and snap swivels. And a fresh carton of night crawlers. He didn’t have a clue how to fish with a lure and owned none. I’m outfitted for anything anywhere and he’d ask why I carried all my gear around? “Night crawlers work no matter what! You don’t need to lug around all that stuff.” And in freshwater he caught more trout on worms than I did on lures. And at the piers in the saltwater he caught everything on his damn worms! When he first cast a night crawler into the ocean I said, “How many saltwater fish have ever seen a worm before?” He shrugged, “Probably none, but that’s what I’m going with.” I shook my head. And he got the first bite, landed a 2 pound Rockfish. That’s a great eating fish and the whole pier of fishermen were curious because they haven’t caught a rockfish and asked what he was using? He shrugged, “Worms”. On his second cast with a fresh worm in the ocean, his rod tip started bouncing but slowly, like a steady tugging back and forth. He decided to set the hook and reeled in a keeper Dungeness crab! On a frigging worm! His hook went through one of the legs and it was all over. Nobody, I mean nobody, fishes with night crawlers in the ocean but he did better than anyone by far that night! It’s just too stupid to believe and no fisherman would copy his strange technique, including me. I’ve caught tons of crabs the proper way, I just can’t bring myself to throw a night crawler out there. It seems wrong. But, it worked. Anyway, your using tough dead bait like beaver tail on a lure while ice fishing just reminded me of pretty much everything in my life of fishing. Thanks so much for that, my fellow Wisconsinite. Aloha from Seattle. 🤙🏼
Haha. That’s good stuff! I’ve definitely transferred a lot of my lure fishing techniques to fishing the Gulf of Mexico in Florida and found that they work excellent for redfish, snook, trout etc. I even caught a barracuda offshore on a figure 8 just like we do for Muskies here in WI. It followed my lure to the boat without striking and I just went straight into the fastest figure 8 I could possibly muster and that thing just annihilated the bait right at my rod tip. 😂
Clam silkies work good too but they can be pulled out of the rubber ball fairly easily. And the rubber ball is pretty tough so using it on a short or small shank hook makes it interfere with the hookup. I use it on vertical jigs and catch everything on it. The lenders tungsten shrimp is 🔥for trout no need to tip it they will eat it deadsticked
Yes. I’ve used silkies before on vertical spoons as well. I mentioned that one in another video I uploaded earlier this year specifically for crappies.
Well, they are, but you have to catch that first fish somehow. 😂 Also, there are quite a few states/provinces where it is 100% illegal to use gamefish or panfish eyes for bait.
Final went out today. 6 inches in the dells area. 2 man limit of crappie. Great start
Awesome!
adding that feathered hook and hitting with scent is really thinking outside the box. gonna try that.
It’s a great combo!
I used to take a eyeball out of the first fish I was going to eat. It would stay on a Swedish pimple all day!!
Fish eyes are definitely a good tipping bait. Not legal everywhere though.
It seems that dressed trebles with Billy Rub would be a good combination. Thanks for the ideas!
Yes. I’ve done that too! The only thing is that the paste scent almost completely stops the action of the feathers because they get gummed up. Still works though.
Great video as usual.
Thank you!
Thanks for the tips. I always hate buying meals for one afternoon of fishing, knowing that I’m not getting back out again till the next weekend
You bet! 👍
I've used beaver tails before. Not much luck, but that was probably me, lol. I'm definitely going to check out the others, too. Thanks for the informative video.
They definitely work!
I will try a few of these options in the U.P next week
Let me know how they work!
That’s very cool. I’ve never ice fished even though I grew up in Wisconsin, but I remember live baits always being the best and most easily stolen off the hook. I graduated to lures in my teens, much to the disappointment of my mom, who stayed true to her cane pole and worms or live minnows. In California fishing saltwater, we’d use live grass shrimp or pile worms available at any bait shop. And again, you’d lose a lot more bait than the amount of fish you catch. Plus, the bait was more expensive than most anything you caught with it from shore. Still fun of course, but nobody was fishing with lures. I’d dragged my tackle box full of lures from Wisconsin all the way to California, just to be told they were useless unless you’re fishing freshwater. So live bait on a double hook drop shot rig was the way to go. Bummer. At least my Mepps spinners and Rapalas and Castmasters wouldn’t get rusty in the salt, so I kept them dry. I lived on boats in San Francisco Bay for 6 years and my lures from Wisconsin remained in pristine condition the whole time. Frustrating but kinda cool at the same time. Maybe they’ll be worth a lot as antiques since I couldn’t see using them in the foreseeable future. Then me and dad sailed his 30 foot Tahiti Ketch to Hawaii, and my tackle box from Wisconsin went along for the cruise. That’s about 4500 miles from Oshkosh now. To my surprise and delight, the Hawaiians used mostly lures from shore. Reef fish hit mostly top water baits or “squiggly tail” jigs running as fast as you can reel them. I showed my new fishing partner my lures from Wisconsin and he’d never seen anything like a Mepps spinner but assured me they would work. “Brah, deez fish hit anything you throw at dem. Day aggressive buggahs.” And yep, they nailed my Mepps and Rapalas and pretty much everything in my Wisconsin tackle box. (So much for keeping my Wisconsin lures as future antiques), as the hooks quickly went rusty. They use all stainless steel wire and hooks out there. All my Wisconsin lures were trashed within a couple weeks. The spinners wouldn’t spin after a while and the hooks were not even hooks anymore. So I replaced them with Hawaiian stainless lures but what we did was exactly like you’re doing in this video. Add a tough dead bait to the lures. Usually strips of squid for that scent trail and action but almost impossible for any reef fish to tear off the hook. 35 years of fishing lures in Hawaii and now I’m in Seattle. My Hawaiian lures won’t work here since these saltwater fish are cold and deep and it’s back to live bait again. Jigs work off the piers but you ain’t casting lures like in Hawaii or Wisconsin. Strange that Hawaii and Wisconsin style fishing has more in common than Washington in the salt.
My new Seattle fishing buddy grew up here and showed me around all the lakes and ocean piers and I’d accumulated a bunch of lures in a new tackle box for freshwater and jigs for salt. I carried all this gear around but my buddy would only fish with night crawlers on a drop shot rig no matter if it was a lake or Puget Sound. He had one broken pole and crappy reel and a ziplock bag with a couple hooks, weights, and snap swivels. And a fresh carton of night crawlers. He didn’t have a clue how to fish with a lure and owned none. I’m outfitted for anything anywhere and he’d ask why I carried all my gear around? “Night crawlers work no matter what! You don’t need to lug around all that stuff.” And in freshwater he caught more trout on worms than I did on lures. And at the piers in the saltwater he caught everything on his damn worms! When he first cast a night crawler into the ocean I said, “How many saltwater fish have ever seen a worm before?” He shrugged, “Probably none, but that’s what I’m going with.” I shook my head. And he got the first bite, landed a 2 pound Rockfish. That’s a great eating fish and the whole pier of fishermen were curious because they haven’t caught a rockfish and asked what he was using? He shrugged, “Worms”.
On his second cast with a fresh worm in the ocean, his rod tip started bouncing but slowly, like a steady tugging back and forth. He decided to set the hook and reeled in a keeper Dungeness crab! On a frigging worm! His hook went through one of the legs and it was all over. Nobody, I mean nobody, fishes with night crawlers in the ocean but he did better than anyone by far that night!
It’s just too stupid to believe and no fisherman would copy his strange technique, including me. I’ve caught tons of crabs the proper way, I just can’t bring myself to throw a night crawler out there. It seems wrong. But, it worked.
Anyway, your using tough dead bait like beaver tail on a lure while ice fishing just reminded me of pretty much everything in my life of fishing. Thanks so much for that, my fellow Wisconsinite.
Aloha from Seattle. 🤙🏼
Haha. That’s good stuff! I’ve definitely transferred a lot of my lure fishing techniques to fishing the Gulf of Mexico in Florida and found that they work excellent for redfish, snook, trout etc. I even caught a barracuda offshore on a figure 8 just like we do for Muskies here in WI. It followed my lure to the boat without striking and I just went straight into the fastest figure 8 I could possibly muster and that thing just annihilated the bait right at my rod tip. 😂
You got me looking at beavers different now.
😂
Clam silkies work good too but they can be pulled out of the rubber ball fairly easily. And the rubber ball is pretty tough so using it on a short or small shank hook makes it interfere with the hookup. I use it on vertical jigs and catch everything on it. The lenders tungsten shrimp is 🔥for trout no need to tip it they will eat it deadsticked
Yes. I’ve used silkies before on vertical spoons as well. I mentioned that one in another video I uploaded earlier this year specifically for crappies.
What's your favorite of the 6 options?
Boy, that’s a tough one. Depends on what species I’m targeting I guess. Panfish I’d have to say beaver tail. Gamefish Id say the double eye.
@calebwistad I'll have to check them out.
Great commercial, fisheyes are free !
Well, they are, but you have to catch that first fish somehow. 😂 Also, there are quite a few states/provinces where it is 100% illegal to use gamefish or panfish eyes for bait.
What!? Heresy! lol. Try em all.
😂
I've cut the tongue out of a fish before. Looks allot like a pork frog and works great
Ha! That’s a new one. I’ve never heard of anyone using a fish tongue for bait. Cool!
Gulp has a lot of good fake bait as well
For sure!