anyone fish walleye with hellgramites?

[Toby]

I'm going to go to some walleye waters and I wanted to try hellgramites. For smallmouths,.... I can't believe how well they have done for me, they are by far the best bait I have ever used (live and hardware) I wondered if you had much luck with them with walleyes?

[risor39]

Tried for perch on Whitefish lake in Canada and we ended up catching some nice eyes with them,but we already had or limit of eyes for the trip.

[Krebs]

Better than leeches IMO,...but don't tell anybody!

[Lon33]

If you can get the big ones they are like gold,..no strike that, like diamonds! Make that big ,perfect diamonds!!! Its surprising how many fishermen don't know about these!!! Yeah,, don't tell them!!! Can be easily caught but best with 2 guys....

[BabeLinder]

How can they easily be caught? I looked for hours when I was a kid and caught about 25 crawfish to every hellgrammite. We were smallie fishing in streams so crawfish were good enough. I work with a guy who calls them ugly bugs and says they catch everything. He has a secret spot where to get them. Anybody help on how to find them?

[cxtx]

I heard that you get a seine or something as cheap as a pillowcase and hold it across and opened up and stretched out under water in a small stream. You have a buddy go just upstream from you and flip rocks and kick things around a bit and the hellgramites will be washed downstream into the seine/pillowcase and you pick them off of there. I have never done it but this is what I have heard from other people. I have caught a few by hand but that gets real tediuos real fast.

[BabeLinder]

Tedious about covers it.

[walleyepa]

They are easy to catch. I use them for smallies. Get a minnow seine, attach it to 2 poles. Hold it across the stream or creek and have a buddy flip rocks and then kick the bottom real well. A hoe works for the bottom. The best places to find them are at rapids. You need some current to wash them off the bottoms of rocks. They also like to get into the river bed under the rocks thats the reason for using your feet or the hoe.

[Garvin]

Thats about right,..I use some sreening material stapled to two dowels,..one guy holds it down stream in fast water,..and the otherv turns over rocks,..some streams produce better than others. grab they just behind the head,..(they CAN pinch) hook them under the collar,...GREAT bait!!!!!! keep them moving a bit so they don't crawl under a rock,..in MOST waters the best for smallies ,super for trout,..and we don't have a lot of walleyes here but I know they do like them.

[risor39]

Hold on guys.The helgramites I was using were not the real thing these are dragonfly larvae.They are sold around here as helgramites.They an 1 1/2"long and green.The real helgramite has a brown coloration and a pincher at the front from what i understand.The dragonfly larvae are found in the green weeds.Sloughs and marshes are a better place to find them with a square box with a screen at the bottom with a handle attached.The sides of the box are about 1-3" high and about 2-3' square.Dip into the weeds and shake the bugs out onto the screen.

[hooked-on-crawlers]

I, too, have purchased "hellgramites" that are really dragonfly larvae. They are green, and work GREAT for bluegill. Here's a picture:

http://www.museum.state.il.us/research/entomology/hines/larva.html

I've never used the REAL hellgramite for fishing, because I can never find them for sale. I'd love to try 'em sometime, though.

[BillT]

Yep those are not real hellgramites,..real hellgramites are super! I'm surprised how many fisherman I talk to around here never fished with them but I'm blown away about how many never heard of them! Again,..maybe we should tell too many <G> Around here they are 2-3 inches long.you hook them behind the collar,..one can last you a long time they are very tough.

[Chuckles]

I would encourage all of you to discourage the use of dragonfly larva. They take up to three years to mature and catching lots for bait can wipeout an area of some species. If using them for bait please keep conservation in mind and only take some of what you catch. Keep in mind they are among the best mosquito control there is. As a sidebar - dragonflies have been on earth for about 350 million years - dinosaurs only arrived about 260 million years ago. In the fossil record some of them reached 3-4 feet in length! Never thought about them as bait... Hellgramites are the larvae of the dobsonfly. Do remember seeing an adult male when I was a youngster. The pinchers on the front are used for mating as I understand it. Chuckles

[Eyehound]

How could anyone possibly know how long the
Dragonfly has been on earth? What do you use
to measure the age of something like that?
How do you calibrate such an instrument?
Nothing more than a theory propagated by
people that evolved from apes!

[cxtx]

eyehound,
All i am going to say to your comment is this, watch the discovery channel and the history channel sometime and you will learn something. Also, books are another good place to find out about it...

good luck fishing...

[dot compost]

Ya eyehound, whatsamatter with you? Good grief, have'nt you ever seen Planet of the Apes? Some people.

[Eyehound]

I watch it all the time. I get tired of
seeing theory presented as fact. Think
for yourself for a moment, how can you
measure the age of something (fossils)
with an instrument(carbon dating) which
cannot possibly be calibrated or even verified
as being correct. As far as books are concerned
the best book on the subject of creation
is the Bible! It deals in a much different
time line than the evolution THEORY.

[dot compost]

hound,
I agree with you completely. The Planet of the Apes thing was a tongue in cheek reply to the "primordial soup" people. Funny anecdote: The scientists tell God that they can create life. God says,"Show me". Scientists say,"Well first we get some dust". God says,"No. First you gotta create your own dust".

[Sloughman]

Unfortunately, it's made of people. Plus, Charlton Heston was in that movie also. I find it hard to criticize him, though, because he was like a brother to me.

[dot compost]

Uh, Sloughman, uh soylent green is not made of people-it does'nt exist.

[Akumal]

Steve, lets not turn this into something that will get dusted again.

[dot compost]

Again? When was the first time?
Steve Taylor

[Akumal]

Hey D.C. ,.. That wasn't directed at you,..

[Glenn Weaver]

Great bait,..watch those pinchers on these ugly guys. Often works for me when I'm getting skunked on everything else.

[dot compost]

ten-fer

[Chuckles]

Fairly simple to look at the fossil record and see the progression of species over time - my theory is that someone out there set up conditions for our eventual lives... but to sum up that whole process - to make it understandable for all of us - it was put in a simple form - otherwise the first story of your book (creation story from the bible) would run from start to finish and still only hit the highest points. Yes carbon dating can be questioned - but rarely is done so by any who have taken the time to understand how it works. Chuckles

[SUPERTROLLER]

When we're talking about 350,000,000 years, does it really matter much if they're off by 100,000 or 500,000 years? It's still a LO0000NG time ago.

[Aston]

Anyway,..anyone ever get "pinched" by these guys? Is it sustantial?

[SUPERTROLLER]

Yes! They can draw blood. Saw it on T.V. with one of our local outdoors shows.

[Protiller]

Eyehound, what you see on television has to be taken with a grain of salt. Remember, even if it's on the Discovery or History Channels it's there to entertain us. Most of their material is true but some of it is stretched a bit.
As for carbon dating...it's accurate to roughly 10,000 years. Therefore since the earth is about 4.5 billion years and our universe is estimated at being 10-15 billion years, there is much time that goes untested.
There are many other forms of dating that are being used and have shown to be more accurate for older specimens. In an earlier post "Chuckles" pointed out the rock record as a form of dating. Scientists can look at the rock record and use various forms of dating.
A few examples for modern dating are; radiometric dating- this depends on the radiometric decay of radioactive elements, magnetic polarity-depends on geologically instantaneous reversals of Earth's magnetic field, Fission track dating- this results from damage to crystals during radioactive decay events, and tree ring chronology.
With all these dating techniques, not everything can be dated. Here are some examples of what can be dated, most anything found in an igneous rock can be dated, the date reflects the time at which crystallization occured. In high grade metamorphic rocks the date reflects the time of metamorphism. Sedimentary rocks are difficult to date because the clastic particles are derived from older rocks and reflect the time of crystallization of the older rock.
A couple of other absolute dating techniques are tephrochronology. This applies dates by tracing volcanic ash deposits. This is usually coupled with some form of radiometric dating. Dendrochronology is tree ring dating. This uses tree ring patterns in preserved wood to determine the age before present.
The list can go on and on for dating techniques. Carbon-14 dating isn't the only souce of dating. It just happens to be what everyone learns in 8th grade science and visions ans the only technique for dating.
As for creationism and evolution. I would agree with you that evolution is a theory. One could also argue that creationism is also a theory. Have the events in the Bible ever been proven to happen? No. Creationism and the Bible are a belief. They are not fact. Back to evolution, I suggest one reads Darwin's book on "Origin of Species". Another book to look at is "Evolution" by Mark Ridley. If you're looking for a book on Creationism and Evolution read "Three views on Creation and Evolution" the editor is James Porter Moreland. Othere liturature that should be read is anything by Dr. Evan B. Hazard, professor emeritus Bemidji State University. He is a retired professor of Biology (Evolution and Mammology) and an ordained Baptist pastor. He has devoted his life answering the questions and speculations of both subjects.