?? Live Bait for Bass Fishing ??

We've all used the typical "Minnow with a Bobber" to catch crappie or even largemouth bass. I'd like to know if anyone uses any other live bait to catch bass?

I've used live crawfish years ago with a little success, but nothing in more recent years.

Waterdog

Golden Shiner

Crawfish

All of the above and also caught bass on ribbon snakes, bull frogs, various sunfish, goldfish, large yellow grasshoppers and of course night crawlers.

Fishing with a RIBBON SNAKE? Incredible!

Nothing beats a live waterdog for big bass. The problem is they are not readily accessible year round.

Not really. Years ago used to walk/wade a lot ponds, you come across ribbon snakes a lot. Put them on a worm hook weightless. That said I have not done much wading lately and haven't seen a ribbon snake in 10 years - I guess they are hiding from me.

I've never, ever, used live bait for bass. That said, I have caught two fish on live bait. Caught a dink catfish and a 2 pound crappie ate it....and I've caught a dink bass and a much bigger bass ate it on the way in.

I catch bass on live and dead threadfin all the time

Can't blame them.

Crig live perch on fork in the summer is pretty deadly

When I was in the oilfield in Williston ND there was a certain time of year when you could fill 5 gallon buckets full of water dogs off the roads. It was crazy.

Live perch works any where there is bass

That's where most of them are raised. In the late 80's a buddy of mine would run a truck up to ND and bring back 20,000 at a time from a farm that raised them. I would haul them 1,000 at a time to Kountry Korner at Monty. They went thru 2-3,000 a week during those days.

Cool little piece of trivia. Carl Lowrance, father of the original fish finder was the man that started commercially farming waterdogs. He tried raising them in his home state of Oklahoma but it was too warm. He worked with folks in ND that had ponds specifically for this. They would have to break the ice on them in the winter to get the traps out.

I’m 29 years old... I remember back when I was 8-12 years old, we’d fish waterdogs out there at night. We would catch some big fish. The old man that used to work the gate would tell us stories of some giant fish.