Thread: Mosquito fish instead of store bought minnows?

They're also called Top Dodgers around central NC pretty often. We've got a lot of them. I knew a pond in Apex we called the bait pond, (it got bulldozed for a subdivision about 15 years ago) that was filthy with 'em. We'd seine mosquito fish by the thousands from that pond and use some for bait, then release the leftovers where we were fishing.

Back in 1985 a man hired me to get some Top Dodgers for a new 6 acre pond he'd built. We went to his pond first and filled big plastic bags with water from his pond, then we went to the bait pond and caught thousands of mosquito fish for him. A couple months later, he called again offering to pay for all the 6+ inch shellcrackers I could get him. It was a fun thing getting paid for fishing. I rounded up several dozen from a few different ponds & lakes that we stocked his pond with. To this day, his pond regularly produces seriously big shellcrackers.

Jim

Thanks for the picture ! Those look good! Fur u may want to contact those folks and let them know that u have some them! last report in Bama was 1992 ! U may be famous or sum pen!

Thanks for all the replies. I'll check with GT&O. They're across the big pond (Guntersville) from me, but I can get there from here. Regarding them not being native to this area, that may be so, but me using them in Guntersville will have no effect on the lake. I could have thrown a Bobby Garland on a 1/16 ounce jig head from the stream where I caught them and hit the lake. If they're in that stream by the millions, then they're already in the lake.

Mitch where did you see that about them not being reported since 1992? On 2nd thought, maybe I better not call them. They might block my access to "free" fish bait. LOL

I couldn't tell much difference in them and the store bought minnows, except the adult mosquito fish are what I consider to be the perfect size for crappie fishing. The store where I like to buy minnows was closed and I had to buy some that are plenty large enough to bass fish with for in the morning. Be lucky to catch a crappie on them. They wouldn't touch a big minnow today.

Regarding using minnows. I use what works for me, whether it's jigs or minnows. I'd love to never buy another minnow because they're expensive and take too much time to rig up, but there are days like today when they wouldn't hit a jig. We probably caught 55-60 crappie today of all sizes and less than 10 fish came off jigs and over half of them came off one color. We were using 4 poles with jigs and 4 poles with minnows. I don't think I'm patient enough to fish 8 poles with double minnow rigs. LOL

The only jigs we really caught any crappie on were BGBS Electric Chicken, sprayed with Slab Sauce. I tried 10-12 different colors and used Slab Sauce on them all. I can really only remember 3 fish caught on jigs that weren't caught on electric chicken and those 3 were tipped with a minnow. I didn't catch a fish on an electric chicken jig that wasn't sprayed with Slab sauce either. Slab sauce definitely made a difference on the bites on plastic. If I hadn't only had 3 electric chicken jig bodies in the boat, we might have done real well on them. I remedied that on the way home.

Fishing with minnows is simple and reminiscent of the "good old days". As I get older sitting on a bank watching a bobber is starting to have a renewed appeal.

Originally Posted by FurFlyin

Does anyone use Mosquito fish for bait? Minnows are apparently very hard to come by in these parts in the summer. I haven't caught Mosquito fish to use for fishing in nearly 30 years. I honestly can't remember ever fishing with them as a teenager, maybe I just enjoyed catching them like I enjoyed walking creeks and catching crawfish. Just for the heck of it I guess.

I called around for minnows today and I can buy them at a minnow farm about 20 miles from here, but I have to buy at least 5 lbs at a time and I don't have a way to keep them from dying in the heat. So....

After work today, I regressed to my childhood methods and walked a storm drain, with a large minnow net and probably caught 10 dozen or so Mosquito fish. I will hopefully find out tomorrow how well they catch crappie, but just to be impatient I thought I'd ask if any of you ever fish with them?

They are apparently very easy to keep because this stream is absolutely thick with them and it has no deep water, so I know the water gets hot in the summer and icy in the winter.

I've got a old cattle water trough that I may try to "stock" and see how they do. I need another hobby. LOL

Buy a pair of tilapia and use the babies as bait. That's what we use.

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