Forest tent caterpillars, good bait or not.

Right now these caterpillars hatching and are everywhere. I was curious to know if anyone has had success with using them as bait.

Thanks for your input.

Those things freak me out, man!

Yes me too, but after getting rid of the ones in my yard I still see them everywhere else. Then I begin to wonder if they might serve a purpose as fish bait, so I thought hey ask the fishing Gurus.

Panfish will eat'em up!

Well I am going to try some out today and see how it goes.

Hi, I'm new to the forum, but these are great for panfish!!! Took my cousin out the other day and caught tons of them, did catch and release.

Match the hatch! Those will make excellent Crappie and Sunfish bait.





Side Note: Make sure what ever you use they don't bite or have stingers!

I thought the same thing. Panfish should love them.

I can tell you for a fact that the gills love them , I was fishing last week and I must have been standing under a nest I happen to glnce down and see five crawing on my shirt and more on my pants ! After doing a heeby jeebe dance I knocked them off me into the creek , next thing I knew it was a feeding frenzy the gills were just slurping them down I quickly but on a small beetle spin with as close a color as I could find and the bite was on !

i was standing under a tree where these catepillars were falling off of and into a pond every few seconds. it was a matter of seconds before the bluegills were picking them off the surface of the water. i stopped fishing for a while to enjoy the show.

Same thing happened to me yesterday! I got rained on by caterpillars and ran out the creek like a little girl. Good thing nobody was around to see and hear me lol

It will work for catfish..

Did not make it out,but thanks for all the input guys. It's good to know that they are good for something.