Article: The Live Bait Industry – What are they doing for the sport of Crappie Fishin

You can view the page at http://www.crappie.com/crappie/conte...rnard-Williams

Very well said, and I agree on all accounts. I absolutely agree it is past time to remove live bait from the tournaments. And once that is done the industry will really take off. Stores would be forced to stock a larger amount of tackle for Crappie fishing, win win. I could not even come close to telling you when the last time I had minnows or shiners in my boat.

Very well said but there's the other side of the story. we talked to our supplier and he said he'd never been approached. So we made a deal to advertise on our shirts for free minnows. Seems like a good deal to me.

Good read, good thoughts. We use minnows but its such a hassle to keep them alive overnite. I have a two hundred gallon tank set up with an aerorater on it. Buying buy the pound is not expensive but we have a local store that charges 3 Bux a dozen. They normally die quicker than the ones outa my tank. Go figure. We are 50/50 minnows or jigs.

Why imitate a minnow when you can use the real thing. I catch my own minnows and I fillet and eat the crappie that tournament fishermen would want me to release. This is a two sided coin and tournament fishing is all about $$$$ money not catching a mess of fresh crappie for the table. Talking about trying to ban something because you don't agree with them not giving $$$$ money is not sporting anyway and this article that is helping PETA to ban all fishing. And that's all I got to say about this...

good read

Live bait and artificials both have their place. I only use minnows in colder weather. My opinion is that a tourney can allow or disallow. A fair playing field is all I would ask for. If you choose to not support the live bait industry, that is a personal choice.

This kinda smacks of political blackmail to me. In that if you don't sponsor our tournaments let me see what I can do to harm your business.

Don't we have enough of this stuff in the USA right now. I don't fish tournaments so should I write columns about how they should be controlled or even banned.

I like to fish when I feel like it. Not when some tournament is scheduled. However I realize not everyone feels the way I do. If there were not millions of anglers who do enjoy them. I am sure they would disappear. So while I do not fish tournaments . I in no way would speak out against them. It is purely a matter of personal preference.

There is enough opposition to two of our outdoor pursuits. Hunting and fishing have enough enemies.Really bothers me to see one of our own add fuel to the other sides fire.

Bream/bluegill fishermen use crickets and meal worms; catfishermen use nightcrawlers. Live shrimp are used in the southern coastal waters. Crappie fisherman are NOT the "last vestiges" of fishermen that use live bait.

I'm certainly not the best fisherman out there, but I'm not the worst either, and I've never seen that "using live bait isn't fishing, it's harvesting." If that were the case, why did Tommy Skarlis win CrappieMasters in Mississippi pulling cranks? You've made some pretty big claims in your article that I don't think you can back up.

If live minnows are such a sure fire crappie catching method, why are there so many companies in business producing soft plastics, crappie nibbles, hundreds of styles and sizes of jigs, feather jigs, hair jigs, crappie cranks, roadrunners, rooster tails . . . . . I could go on and on. I'd venture to guess that the revenue stream from all of this greatly exceeds the revenue from selling minnows.

I use minnows when the conditions call for it. Some days they want them and some days they don't. I don't always have them in the boat, but if I WANT them, I'm gonna GET them.

"It’s no different in shooting a deer eating out of a trough of corn."

I'm not a tournament fisherman & probably never will be, but I don't agree with that statement at all.