Michigan Muskie Alliance

Just a quick question about using live bait on Murray Lake. Is it legal for me to catch bluegills there and then use them as bait, or do i have to buy sucker minnows or something from a bait store, or is there no live bait allowed at all? Also does anyone know how far along murray is in the turnover process?

As far as I know it is legal to use bluegill for bait if they are caught in the same lake you are fishing. As for turnover in Murray, I don't know for sure but my bet is water temps are still in the upper 50's which would be quite a ways from turnover temperatures.

You can use any legal and leagally caught sportfish as bait in the water you caught it.

Murray has not started to turnover, the surface temp was still at 60 on Saturday.

Murray Turnover: As of yesterday thermocline is gone and surface debri is too. Seems a few weeks ago was turnover as mixing debri was everywhere.

NOFISH4U wrote:Murray Turnover: As of yesterday thermocline is gone and surface debri is too. Seems a few weeks ago was turnover as mixing debri was everywhere.

There was still a thermocline at 30-35' on Saturday, it can't go away in one day. Particularly if the surface temps are still near 60. The reason I'm saying this as "matter of fact" is because there's no guess at turnover. Based on the properties of water we know for a fact that the fall "turnover" process in a lake doesn't stop until the water reaches a uniform 39 degrees OR there is ice.

speaking of live bait....i seen a bob mesikomer video where he claimed live bait can hurt the fish, yes if it swallows the hooks and dies, but also in another way. He states that when a fish takes that sucker into it's mouth, it's taste sense send messages to the stomach to start producing acids to dissolve the food when digesting. But on like a quick strike rig, when you set the hooks and they go into the fish and it gets no sucker to eat, those acids built up in the stomach have no place to go, so they eat at the fishes stomach. Giving the fish acid indigestion or acid reflux, or something like that, and it causes severe harm to the fish, or possible death.

Now does anyone out there know if there is any truth to this, any studies to prove it one way or the other?

thats interesting, and hopefully someone can shed some light on the subject because I want to use live bait, but I definitely dont want to hurt the fish in anyway. If it does do that then I will for sure not use live bait at all.

yea i hear ya, i thought about live bait rigging myself, but am not sure if it will harm

Mesikomer is an avid live bait hater. If there were real test results confirming this every Wisconsin Board would be lit up over it. I have taken many many Muskies with quick srike sets and never found one dead after. Michelle and I got two in the last two days 45 and 37 inchers both on suckers. I caught one on a sucker last year and it tried to eat another one an hour later swear to god I almost caught it twice in one hour. Lactic acid builds up in every fish that is caught. I think Will knows more about this. Kingfisher

Still a thermocline in Murray.
Becareful when using live bait.(yes I do it to once in a while).You will be
sick when a nice muskie gets deep hooked.Trust me, I know, I killed a
32" out at Thorn a couple summers ago.It swam away with a deep hook, but I know in the back of my mind what eventually happened.Since then,
my use of live bait is very seldom.If that was a upper 40 or 50 incher I
truley would have been sick.
Whatever you do DONT let the fish have the bait for like 30 seconds or
so like you hear all these rookies do before setting the hook.You are
asking for a dead fish in my opinion.

First rule in muskie fishing: don't believe a thing that Mehsikomer says.

I don't know anything specific about the physiology mentioned there, there could be something to it for all I know, what the heck??? But I doubt it, and the logic works like this: If it sounds stupid, Mehsikomer probably said it. If it sounds stupid AND Mehsikomer did say it, it probably IS stupid.

Muskies have prey escape all they time- we've all seen or heard of suckers, carp, pike, smaller muskies, catfish etc. with bite marks. I highly doubt they die in all those encounters. Nature generally just 'works' in the most spectacularly miraculous ways, this sort of a fatal flaw does not jive with the beautiful design of nature.

Duke wrote:First rule in muskie fishing: don't believe a thing that Mehsikomer says.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA - Those weeds smell like muskies...

If stomach acid killed muskies they would be floating all over because the same would happen each time they ate a lure. Muskie anglers spread just as many myths as non-muskie anglers.

Here's my opinion on the live bait subject:
Live bait is good when fishing with kids, under 12. Most can't cast for hours on end and watching a float or listening for a clicker is fun for them. If you are over 12 then live bait doesn't need to be part of your game.

Again, just my opinion.

Bob once told me my underpants smelled like cheese.LOL.

.......s n i f f f f..........wait a minute,

Using Suckers is a blast. Its fun and its a good way to add a fish or two to your season. The bottom line is quick setting the hook. We hit our fish as soon as the fish has the bait. This eliminates deep hooking every time . I have had smaller artificials get taken deeper than any large sucker. Tuff Shads for one. Rapala super shads for two. You just have to set the hook immediately . Yes sometimes you miss them this way. But its better then having to live with knowing you killed one. Using live bait is both effective and ethical. The best part is having a sucker set right at Boatside where you can watch the Musky chase it down and dogbone it. We had three fish up on one sucker at the same time last year and have a picture of it showing two of them circling the sucker. I do not trust circle hooks or any other swallow tactic. Any hook left behind will kill the fish. Any single or treble hook works well for quick setting but trebles hook up better than large single hooks but Single hooks that are barbless do much less damage to the jaw than trebles . I dont use Single hooks because I miss 60% of the fish so instead I use 3/0 Slasher hooks now which are thinner and easier to remove than traditional quick set rigs.Kingfisher

Can you post that pic? It sounds really sweet.