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GREAT USE FOR CICADIAS All you folks that are enduring this year's hatch of Cicadas I have some good news. Cicadas DEAD or ALIVE make outstanding bait for large mouth bass and bluegills. I went fishing with my son and Grandson to a small pond. I took about a dozen Cicadas with us to see if they would work as bait. My son caught a nice large mouth on his first cast with the cicada. The bluegills also pecked them to pieces if they got there first. The cicadas are not very solid, so the fish rip them off the hook a lot. You get the fish or he gets the bait free and clear.
Before we knew it my son and grandson were spending more time rounding up cicadas for bait than actual time fishing. When they got around another dozen cicadas for bait they would then start fishing again. The fish hit bait either way dead or alive. The action of the wings fluttering on the water just caused the fish to bite just a little quicker. If you only have dead bait then a jerky retrieve will speed up the fish's attack on the cicada.
I did notice that there were fewer cicadas at the pond than at home. My son said "that could be that whenever a cicada landed on water that was the end of him, NO second chance to fly around anymore".
The guy that owns the pond came down to cast for bass. He had a small supply of cicadas for bait with him. Every cast he either caught a bass or missed the hard fast bite. So I intend to offer my grandson a penny for every cicada he can get me for bait. I would suggest you to do the same for any young person you know. They get some lose pocket money for their efforts while you get a good supply of great bait.
I plan to try using the cicadas to catch skipjack herring out of the Ohio River very shortly. If the cicadas work half as well on the Skipjacks I will be delighted. I think skipjacks are a good bait to catch larger catfish out of the river around here. Even if that fails I know they will enable me to get a supply of bluegills. With the bluegills I then can seek out the flatheads in this part of the Ohio River.
At least we can put those noisy pests to good use after all! Tight lines to all.
nlcatfish@aol.com webmaster for Cincinnati Catfishing www.cincinnaticatfishing.com AND SHOP WITHOUT DROPPING www.cincinnaticatfishing.com/Shop1.html
Have been catfishing around the Downtown Cincinnati area of the Ohio River for over 40 years. Have gone catfishing to Lockport 5 times over the past 10 years. It is the greastest place to catch lots of huge channel catsfish in North America!!
