French River Fishing

Ontario Fishing Trips

Live or Artificial Bait?
By Tim Allard*

Whether to use live or artificial bait can be an angling dilemma. Both types have a time and place to be used. Your fishing style and the kind of angling you’re doing will influence whether live or artificial is best. Let’s review the strengths and weaknesses of each in detail.

Benefits of the Real McCoy
Put plainly: live bait works. It’s at its best when fish are fussy and when getting bites requires a subtle presentation. A misconception is that live bait is for beginners. While it’s true that many of us learned to fish using it, advanced anglers - like guides and walleye tournament pros - still rely on live bait in certain scenarios. For example, “slow death” is a walleye trolling technique that combines a specialty hook with a piece of worm to produce a corkscrewing action that’s irresistible to fish.

Real bait also has an appeal with youngsters. As a child I used a lot of live bait. Partly because I had confidence in it, but also because I caught my own. I have vivid memories of creeping in my backyard with a flashlight looking for worms at night, and setting my minnow trap at a local creek. Bait collecting was an adventure on its own, hooking fish later was another element all together. If you’ve got youngsters, catching bait’s a great way to add variety and fun to the overall fishing experience.

Live Bait Shortcomings
A downside of live bait is you need to care for it and keep it fresh to maximize its appeal. There are products available for storing and transporting nightcrawlers, leeches, and minnows, but the reality is pet-sitting’s mandatory.

Supply can also be an issue. Trying to get two dozen quality minnows on a long weekend in cottage country can be a challenge. Plus, live bait can be messy when not handled properly; spill the dirt from a container of store-bought worms on a boat’s carpet and you’re in for a cleaning hassle.

Generally speaking, live bait can foster a slower fishing style. This is good when fish are fussy or if you’re keen on relaxing, but often a medium to fast approach increases your odds of catching more fish by covering more water. Using live bait when trolling is a noteworthy exception.
Lastly, bait buckets (i.e., minnow carriers) can hide unwelcome hitchhikers. There’s an ever-growing list of invasive species infiltrating our waterways and these containers can cause trouble when misused. If using a bait bucket you should empty it on land (well away from the shoreline) before leaving any waterbody. Also, buy live bait locally, never dump it into the water, and don’t release aquatic organisms from one water system into another.

Artificial Benefits
Artificial baits are designed to fill in the weakness of live offerings. Where evolution has given creatures mechanisms to avoid being eaten, tackle companies do the opposite and engineer baits to attract predators and entice them to bite.

There’s a plethora of artificial baits for a variety of fishing conditions. There are: lures to fish fast, slow, or at a medium pace; baits you can bring through weeds without getting stuck; models that float, sink, or suspend; ones that make a ruckus with rattles and spinning blades; and, baits infused with fish-attracting scent. Having an assortment of artificial baits provides options on how to fish different scenarios and ways to target fish in varying moods (i.e., active to inactive).

Artificials also don’t require upkeep. With a selection of hard-baits in a tackle tray and soft-baits in sealable bags you’re set up for the season. You can leave these items in your boat or at the cottage and be ready to fish any time. There’s no bait-babysitting. There are also soft-baits that are biodegradable, like Berkley, Ecogear, and Food Source Lures products.

Artificial Hurdles
The abundance of bait choice can be overwhelming for beginners, but with a bit of research and a chat with a tackle shop employee you can quickly get outfitted with quality artificials to catch your favourite fish.

As artificials are inanimate objects, you must work them to make them come alive. This takes practice and time. This might discourage some, but the reward’s the fun of learning different tactics and catching fish doing it.

Cost is sometimes perceived as a disadvantage. Yet when you break down their lifespan compared to a dozen worms or minnows, artificials prove a more cost-effective investment. Of course, loosing a $10 hard-bait is never easy.

Lastly, some believe that artificials simply aren’t as good as the real stuff. In some cases this is true, but it’s not a fair blanket statement. In many instances a properly presented artificial will outperform live bait. Experimenting with both live and artificial baits will test this assumption; it’ll also reveal the strengths and weaknesses of each option, making you a well-rounded angler in the long run.

When trying to decide between buying and using live or artificial bait, consider their strengths and weaknesses, your style of fishing, and what you want from an angling experience. With these factors in mind you’ll find the choice becomes an easy one.

*Tim Allard of Ottawa, Ontario is a hard-water expert and author-photographer of the newly released book, Ice Fishing: The Ultimate Guide. For more information visit: www.helipress.com/product/ice-fishing-138.cfm