Bizarre Fish Foods

There are many benefits to artificial lures. They are durable and do not fall off the hook. Another perk is that the hook set tends to result near the edge of the mouth, with less chance of injury to the fish than live bait. An additional clever aspect of artificial bait is that it is not alive.

The topic of live bait can be a squeamish issue for kids, but lures and soft-plastics come in a variety of shapes that let you try fishing with a creature you know is a tasty prey item for fish, but would never put on a hook in real life.

For example:
 

• Snakes. Any traditional rubber worm reeled in quickly or a floating version can resemble a small snake. The late “Bass Professor” Doug Hannon’s Original Fishing Snake even coils and has a triangular head.

• Lizards. Although called “lizards,” these soft plastic lures are shaped to mimic their more aquatic cousins such as salamanders and newts.

• Turtles. When they hatch or raid fish nests, juvenile turtles can become prey items by large game fish such as bass, pike, or muskies.

• Birds. Once these weedless bird shaped topwater lures land, they rarely take off again.

• Mice. Any mouse that crosses a body of water is taking a huge gamble. And fly fisherman have long known that huge trout can be caught on a mouse-looking fly.

Have you fished with a bizarre creature lure?

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Andy Whitcomb

Andy is an outdoor writer (http://www.justkeepreeling.com/) and stressed-out Dad has contributed over 380 blogs to takemefishing.org since 2011. Born in Florida, but raised on banks of Oklahoma farm ponds, he now chases pike, smallmouth bass, and steelhead in Pennsylvania. After earning a B.S. in Zoology from OSU, he worked in fish hatcheries and as a fisheries research technician at OSU, Iowa State, and Michigan State.