Broke down the slight differences with Gulp Alive Waxies and LIVE spikes.
Which bait will catch more bluegills?
Anyone else experience the same results?
Wisconsin Fishing Discussion
Artificial spikes vs. Real spikes
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I agree on the gulp alive 1" minnows. I've done very well on those through the ice and on soft water crappie fishing. Some times the real thing is needed, but most of the time artificial vs real is even. I've also had success with the powerbait and gulp artificial maggots.
The Gulp Alive 1" minnow in chart and shiner colors are always in my boat. Most of the time it works great on a #10 aberdeen and is all I need. Once in a while they want the real thing like giant red earthworms. Never tried it thru the ice. I stick to red plastic wedgie type baits and add a spike or 2 if they get in the "stare at it all day mode".
As far as open water goes, in the late spring to mid summer my all time favorite bait is a powerbait honey worm in red. For some reason they love it. Especially the bigger gills and perch.
The best gulp bait I have found for panfish is the Gulp Alive 1" minnows those work way better than the gulp maggots/wax worms etc.
Monona bay you can use fuzz off your glove and catch fish. If you used wax worms she would have doubled what she caught. that should be your next experiment. real spikes vs real waxies. i'll take $20 on waxies.
I'm sure you had fun and time with family is priceless, but in all fairness, bait presentation is most times is more important than type of bait. I don't use any of that Gulp or power bait crap cause it doesn't flutter, it doesn't flex it just all out looks bad in the water. If your bait isn't moving naturally, they aren't gonna hit it. Smash a waxie and jig it next to a gulp spike and you'll see what i'm saying.
There are a ton of plastics on the market that smell like nothing and will outfish any of those jugs of Glup. The other stuff looks good, flutters nice, flexes better, it just looks more natural. I'd never waste another dime on any jar of Gulp. Way over priced and it just doesn't work well on big gills
Mr. Jiggers, I see you used the white waxworms for Gulp. I have tried those in the past with very little luck. I did have very good luck on Monona Bay using the red gulp worms. I think they're called angle worms. Just a third of a piece worked really good out there. They're a lot more flexible than the waxworms, which I think makes a difference. Give them a try sometime!
I started using Gulp worms last week instead of live bait. One just one worm piece, cut into thirds, I caught easily 30-40 fish. Now, this is Monona Bay I'm talking about, which you can catch those fish on just about anything, but that's why I stopped using live bait there. I will be using it more often on other bodies of water now. I caught my biggest bluegill of the year out there on it - 9 inches, which is a beautiful bluegill anywhere!
I've got some gulp artificial waxies that I've never opened and kind of afraid to try. I do love fishing plastics, specifically b-y baits plastics on a horizontal presentation. I catch more perch and crappie on the plastics, and they typically run bigger on the plastics. I always have some real waxies along and switch it up but if plastics are producing I rarely go away from them.
So - what was the result??
I always start out with live bait and if it isn't working, i'll switch to artificial. If you fish 100% with live bait, you'll definitely miss out on some fish. It's no secret that artificial bait has a more active presentation. It doesn't happen often, but plastics have outproduced live bait multiple times on the ice for me. I also know guys who fish strictly artificial bait who could outfish me and my live bait any day of the week which tells me that how you jig is more important than what you have on...\
Check out Eurotackle's mummy worms - best of both worlds. Real waxies but much more durable than live waxies.
Displaying 1 to 15 of 16 posts
