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Has anyone ever heard of using acorn larvae? A couple of years ago, I read an article about a guy that went out and collected acorns, in the early fall. He would place them in a fine fish net, in his laundry room, and hang the net over a 5 gallon bucket. The article said that the larvae would bore themselves out of the acorns and fall into the bucket. Reportedly these larvae are tougher and are great ice fishing bait.
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I had a old timer down the road were i grew up show me this when i was young, The key is to harvest the acorns before they crawl out.
The way he did this is he had a bucket of sand and poured the acorns in top and they would come out and go into the sand.
Your picture makes these grubs look lot bigger from what i remember, there actually quite small .
Another grub we use to harvest was corn bores, use to cut up corn stalks till we found em, for free bait they both work great
My mom was a waitress on the weekends to earn extra money. She also loved to be around people. We lived in the country and there was an older gentleman looking for someone to ice fish with. My dad worked a ton of hours so my mom and i went with him. This was my first ice fishing trip. The gentleman used acorn worms and showed me how to do it. He used the sand technique. Those worms are awesome and hold up very very well.
Corn Bores were the bait of choice years ago. They are not for sale anymore and going out and getting your own is the only means of obtaining them now. There were THE best bait and were tough as nails. You could catch 3 or 4 fish on one Corn Bore.
I cut a lot of corn stalks to bring home & sort through. Then a neighbor started raising wax worms!! I was done hauling corn stalks. I'd just stop and buy a couple Doz. wax worms and be on my way fishing. I use a lot of Red Spikes, I like them, but they die pretty fast. On a couple trips last winter they were all the Crappie would hit..
I have watched videos of guys using colored spikes. Some Red and some Green. I want to use them but my problem is finding them for sale. Where do you get yours?
After I got out of the Air Force in 1970 we lived stayed Louisiana for a few years. Our neighbor used to harvest Catawba worms from the catawba tree in his yard to use for fishing bait on Sam Rayburn Reservoir. The CATALPA tree (up north) is supposed to be the same as the CATAWBA tree (down south). Has anyone ever used catalpa worms? If I could find a seedling I would plant a few to use for bait. He used to freeze the worms and when they thawed they would revive work as live bait.
I grew up, in Alabama, with my Dad using Catawba worms that he would collect from the webs and he would load up on Gills using them. I've never seen a Catawba worm or web in Michigan.
Most all of the bait shops have them up here. What part of Mich are you from?Quote:
Originally Posted by OleTimer
My go to bait is mousee. Sometimes you can catch a dozen fish on them. Fish seem to like the little tail. Two years ago the bait manufacturors had a disease and you couldnt get them. I also prefet butter worms to waxies. They are bigger and have tough skin. Seem to stay in the hook better when thefish are nipping. We buy our bait 1000 at a time and sometimes more. They stay just right in the fridge. Change out the sawdust periodically.