I mail-ordered some live maggots to use as fish bait, and I tested them today.Turns out they're about the best sunfish bait in the world.
One of my favorite spots on the river is where a spring-fed stream meets the river. The fish in the spring are in ultra-clear water, so they've been fished pretty heavily. They run away from bobbers, won't eat anything off the bottom, and won't get within 7 feet of anyone on the bank. I managed to catch one- a green sunny. There are a few others with large spots, possibly Rio Grande cichlids, that I couldn't manage to catch. They flee from anything that hits the water.
The fish in the main river, right at the stream mouth, are used to bugs drifting downstream. Drop a grub in, and you're guaranteed results, especially around a few clumps of weeds.
I didn't measure most of the fish I caught, just approximated the size. Large is >4", medium is about 3-4", small is about 2-3", baby is <2", and anything that's definitely at least 6" I refer to as very large. This river is fairly heavily fished by people looking for either bait or dinner, so sunfish usually don't get over 7". Not that I've seen, at least. I suspect there are a few monster sunnies that are just really smart.
At the stream mouth, I caught:
2 very large bluegills
5 large 'gills, one with a green-sunny-esque white edge to his tail.
6 medium 'gills
3 small gills
1 large redbreast
1 medium redbreast
1 large green sunny
For a total of 19 sunfish, all on maggots. I also caught a small leech that was on one redbreast's fin, but I pulled the leech off with tweezers.
Here's one of the bluegills.
I'm absolutely sure this is a redbreast.
I'm reasonably sure this is a redbreast. If I'm wrong, let me know.
Apparently it's a bluegill. My bad.
My phone died shortly after that, so I don't have any more pics. Well, I have more than these, but they're all just bluegills and such. I wish my battery had lasted, because my second spot was AWESOME.
My second spot (and my new favorite) is just below a dam. It's swarming with big sunfish, and there are usually some bass. I've also seen a spotted gar, and a school made of about 12 carp. Not just carp, a lot of them have gold on them, and there's one that's like a dark platinum. Most look to be hybrids, but the platinum one is probably all goldfish. About two years ago, I found a Petsmart fish bag at the river, near there, and it had a serial number on it. I called the store and asked about the number, and apparently it was a feeder goldfish code. I suspect someone bought some bait and some of it got away.
The goldcarp were having none of me. They darted away whenever bait hit the water, and they avoided me, even though I was 6 feet above them on the dam. Smart fish.
I started with maggots, then spotted a lure hung up on a branch and dangling into the water. After a trip to get it untangled before a dumb fish got caught, I had myself a mayfly-type fly and a rooster tail spinner. I paired the mayfly with a maggot, tossed it out, and got instant results. Worked on sunfish and small bass. The large bass all hung out under a lot of fishing-line-covered snags, so I couldn't reach them.
About halfway through, I ran out of maggots and switched to a purple minnow-type lure with a white belly. Worked really well on the big sunfish, and most of the strikes I got on that were instant.
The mayfly/maggot combo got me two smallmouth bass, one 5", one 6", and 3 large green sunfish.
The minnow got me 6 gorgeous warmouths (none under 6"), 5 large green sunfish (some of those may have been re-catches, and the two biggest fish I've caught so far- an 8" green and an 8 1/2" green. Yes, I know that's not huge, but it's pretty big for a sunfish.
Between the maggots, the mayfly/maggot, and the minnow, I caught:
The above fish
3 large longears (two big thick ones with humps, definitely males, one that was probably a male)
3 medium longears
5 small longears
1 very large bluegill
4 large bluegills
1 small bluegill
1 medium redbreast
1 small redbreast
And a large 'gill with a 1 1/2" scar down his side. Looked like a slice mark from something. I found a couple with small versions of the same scar, but this guy had a majorly noticeable one. I'm not sure what it was from... getting caught sideways on lost hooks, maybe? There's a big thicket of water weed behind that area, and I imagine it's packed full of lost lures. I'd check, but water moccasins live in there. Also, I can't tell how deep it is. Also, fishing spiders.
That's a total of 49 fish there.
61 fish total, in about 5 hours of fishing. Basically one fish per five minutes, more if you factor in the 15-or-more minutes spent traveling between spots and at least 8 minutes (scattered around) of re-rigging things, plus probably another 15 minutes from the two times I had to wade across a river to access my spot. There's no way to get down from the dam into the water on that side of the river, short of jumping into a pile of broken branches and spiders, so to get down into the water there, I had to walk back across the dam, across the river (not deep, but I'm small and can't walk fast in water), back across the river again, and back along the dam. Twice. Once was to retrieve someone's lost lures to keep dumb fish from being caught, once was to untangle a fish that had managed to snag my line in two places and make itself impossible to just haul out.
I'm somewhat proud of myself, honestly. For one thing, I figured out how to cast a lightweight fly 30 feet without a fly fishing rod, while still allowing it to drift in midwater instead of sitting weighted on the bottom. Also, an 8 1/2" sunfish is pretty decent sized. And lastly, 61 line-caught fish in about 4 1/2 hours! I'm sure someone here has done better, but still.
Assorted other things about the area below the dam:
There are lots of turtles below the dam. I caught a half-dollar-sized baby by dangling the tail of my minnow in his face until he bit it (he was too small to reach the hook and get caught on it) and then lifting quickly. He didn't let go.
There are crawdads all over the place, at least 3 per hundred square feet. I saw a blue and green one at one point, but most are the typical Texas red-and-purple ones.
The male longears nesting upstream of the dam are MEAN. They won't let anything get within 2 feet of their spot.
There are two pairs of what I think are Rio Grande cichlids nesting below the dam, one over a cinderblock. They only taste lures, they don't bite.
There are diamondback water snakes, and they don't mind if you walk right in front of them while retrieving a lure. I got within about 1 1/2 feet of one who was sitting underwater, and he didn't look alarmed. Yes, I'm sure of the ID. Yes, they're nonvenomous. I'm not an idiot.
The goldcarp like to snorfle around in the plants and then tuck themselves into the stirred-up spots.
There's a gar who appears out of nowhere to shoot past and vanish.
The shiners jump when a large bass gets too close.
Thanks to that, the bass and warmouths often strike if you plop a minnow-sized lure into the water right next to them.
The small bass attempt to sneak up on the shiners. Doesn't work terribly well.
Edited by Betta132, 17 May 2015 - 06:56 PM.
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