talapia on worms

little creek i fish in the middle of nowhere (hardee cty) always tearing up with talapia. just bustin the top all the time. always catch a cat or a few gill there but this weekend i caught 7 nice gills and 2 talapia about 14'' long. almost as long as a 5 gallon bucket. shouldve took some pics but ...anyways..i threw my worms waaaay out into the middle away from where i normally fish for the gills. hoping for a cat really. real slow hit but good scrappers on 4lb test. not much meat on a fish that size either but they were good eatin. 2 real nice ones

anyone else catchin these on worms?? or anything else for that matter..besides a net i mean. what else is good for bait

Glad to hear about the talapia. Worms are good but you can also catch them on grass shrimp and flys. You need to use the flys right at daybreak though. You better beef up your line though your likely to hook a big one as not. We have a lot in lake Monroe in the dugouts where the water is still. This year I've seen dozens of beds 3 to 4' wide. One of the hardest fighters out there and some fine eating as well

I was at the spillway above Labelle a couple of years ago..and watched a guy
catchin tilapia by using a twist tie wire (paper removed) to hold weeds he dredged
out of the creek to a bare hook. He told me that it worked better than worms.
But I have never had luck trying it. Anybody else use this method?

why would they eat whats on th3e hook if the btm was full of it already? the worms worked good.
i also used some commercial made cheeseballs for cats to chum up alittle before i started catchin em. in a 1/2 hr fishin went from slow to hookin one on every cast..altho slow bitin they were takin it. i just threw em in the direction i was already fishin and boom....
coincidence or did the cheeseballs help..never did before?

some of the gills still had roe in em too...aint it late for that? beds were all empty on the banks

I was wondering what to use to catch these fish myself . I have a lake in port charlotte that is smack full of these fish , I'm going to try the worms and bread to see what works.

SNAG 'em, In the early 70's we threw cast nets and would catch an average of 150 to 200 lbs per day. We got 21 cents per pound, gutted.