dead bait?

[finlessbrown]

has anybody ever had any luck fishing pike with dead bait? i've know people do it but nobody that i know. myself and everybody i know put a fresh one on when one dies.

[ssinvt]

With the price of bait, I use everything untill it has been taken.  Or untill I leave.  I have caught some nice pike on dead bait.  Can't frickin wait to try it again.   

[RipSomeLips22]

pike really arent that picky when eating dead or alive, unless already filled up with alwives!  Salmon and browns on the other hand, better check your bait every hour or you could be flagless!

[FondoFishin]

After the first few weeks of the season, I switch mainly to dead bait for pike. Nothing beats a freshly killed, still twitching shiner or sucker. 

[woodyvt]

My experience with Pike is they eat anything dead or alive.  If ya clip the baits tail they basically move a lot, but dont really go anywhere and that seems to work pretty well.

[Jessox80]

I agree with Woody, the clipped shiners make a lot of commotion attract attention yet are still easy prey. I've had more luck on dead later in the season, but I think pike will inhale anything they see.

[bradleyroy]

What we do is buy about 2 dozen baits, run as many tip ups as we have (maybe 18 or so) and then re bait as we lose baits, but once we use all our reserve we just start to fish our self out of bait. If we have to run dead bait, we always set the dead ones up really high, or so they are floating up into the ice sheet, this replicates the dead baits that people throw down the hole when they are done with them that the pike may be used to eating...

[woodyvt]

Bradley,

Have you had luck with the ones you float up to the ice?  Never tried that before.

Woody

[hairbone]

we used to use those dental ruber band to hold the hook on a dead sucker and send it to the bottom for lakers.  Works great and lakers will eat anything.   

When fishing the huge suckers it works better to give it a good bounce on the ice before you stick it on the hook, instead of fin clipping it.

[cbice]

I don't usually change my bait until it gets ripped off.  I

[bradleyroy]

Bradley,

Have you had luck with the ones you float up to the ice?  Never tried that before.

Woody

Yeas it does, i think it works better in highly pressured areas, because its more natural looking