Hawaiibassfishing Forum

I've had several questions about "live bait" fishing so I added another page to the HBF web site. Could you guys look it over and let me know what you think please?

I didn't get really deep into different ways or places to use live bait, just... a simple starting point for new anglers to the lake. Something permanent so you don't have to sift through the Forum posts.

http://www.hawaiibassfishing.com/defaul ... 9470&id=45

Thanks,
Stan
One of the pictures on the new page.

notice it says 4 to 6 pound test. unlike the 20 or 30 pound test i find in clumps on the ground near the shore.

Like the line that I found tangled in the seal on the wheel of the boat trailer? Wish people would pick up after themselves.

in the blast of the past, we would use whole, smallish crayfish. we'd just catch a tin can of them (small, 1.5" crayfish) and hook them through the tough shell part of the nose area (never the tail). this way, the crayfish would swim backwards like it does and be moving away from you. you could feel it swimming around if you used ultralight line (6lb. line). we used ultralight spinning tackle. only the larger bass would bite this rig. we'd take some of the live crayfish home and put them in our aquarium. a friend and i had several 15 and 20 gallon aquariums in the backyard (not enough room for 'em in the house!).....i had mine lined up on a 12ft. length of 2x12 that i laid down on some bricks. we'd put small tilapias in them, puntat catfish, and all sorts of Wahiawa river fish.
we also used small puntat catfish as live bait. this really worked catching bass. but we didn't use them a lot because they were hard to catch!
the other main bass live bait was a dojo - these were also hard to catch - harder to catch than puntat. the most common live bait was obviously the unbeatable earthworm. anything that swims will bite it.

I remember the guys using the puntat... they said that was the best. Don't they bite if your not careful? Crawfish were used a lot too.

Stan Wright wrote:Like the line that I found tangled in the seal on the wheel of the boat trailer? Wish people would pick up after themselves.

ARGH I hope it wasn't a baby one.

we used to catch the puntat by using handheld scoopnets (the old kind with the wood handle and the red netting). we paddled the inflatable up the north fork and scooped under logs and rocks, and in the fallen leaves along the shore bank's edge - staying in shallow water. Back in those days, far up the north fork, there were bends in the river that built up silt "sandbars" that were very shallow flats-like areas only ankle to calf-deep. we would adventure around with our scoop nets and scoop here and there. we'd scoop up tiny tilapias, a small bluegill or two, a lot of crayfish (two different kinds), mosquito fish minnows, the fry of all sorts of unknown fish, frogs, shad, small goldfish, sometimes a dojo, but very rarely a puntat - the puntat were the hardest to catch! Those puntat, live, on a bare 1/0 bronze standard j-hook, would always catch a bass. whopper 5lb largemouth would bite that puntat automatically. incidentally, in retrospect, if i had known to use spin-casting gear, i would have! Cheap and reliable, casts well with light line and can use very short, handy rods. works just like a baitcaster, too!