i want to thank everyone who helped me

[dave]

i have been trying to find a method that i could use to help me catch walleyes here on stockton lake in stockton missouri. well folkes over the past weekend i have found me a bait that i can depend on in a location for at least a few day haha i was fishing allweekend and i couldnt get a bite with worms and shiners. jigs and minnow immating lures left me high and dry. well i had a little bit heavier setup with me and decided to start fishing for some cats and mabey i could catch a flathead. soon after i through out my large perch i had a good bite. i set the hook to land a 25 inch walleye.. last week i posted a local man was useing small perch and catching them but i have not had the chance to get any small perch. at first i thought this must be a fluke. but i wasnt complaing! i baited back up and then through out anopther pole just to see. i caught to more walleye in less then a hour. one 21 inches and another 20 1/2. after that i baited up on more time and managed to catch my limit with a 16 inch fish. now this might not have been so cool but this was only the second time i have ever caught a keeper walleye and i managed to limit out haha. then the next night i went out and had the same luck with fish between 20 and 16 inches. last night i only caught two but both were 18 inches. now i know some might not approve of a person eating these great fish but i have to admitt i did take 3 home to eat. i dont belive that 3 out of ten fish is a bad thing. i took the smallest one from the first night none the second night and both from last night. but anyway i just wanted to thank everyone for their help i9n my search for ol' marble eyes. dave

[WAeyes]

Congratulations Dave. If someone has a problem with you keeping a few walleye to eat, well thats too bad. How big of perch are you using and how did you find some for bait? Interesting that a shiner would not work at all huh?

[dave]

my perch were 4-6inch. i fihed shiners and i could not get a bite. i caught the perch on worms fishing in the lips of a small ledge. dave

[Hans]

Check your state laws. Here in Minnesota it is illegal to use perch for bait.

Hans

[Buzz]

I also live in Missouri (a cheesehead transplant) and believe what the Missourians refer to as "perch" are actually small sunfish. I know alot of catfishermen that use these for bait. Since so many of them talk about using "perch" for bait, I'm assuming that it is legal in the Show-Me state, but this is only an assumption.

[bob oh]

LAST EDITED ON Jun-06-01 AT 05:21AM (CST)[p]Isn't everything illegal or immoral in MN except beer drinkin and fish spearin? :-)
Bob

[Great White Hunter]

It all depends on your "racial orientation". Some are free to
slaughter the fish while others have to conform to strict laws and
size restrictions.

[dave]

yes i guess what i should have said is sunfish. we dont have the yellow perch that you all have up north. sorry to confuse you guys we (us hicks from mo) have always called them perch. it is only illegal to use game fish for bait here any other fish (rough fish) can be used. and we to go fish stabbing only we call it gigging and even then we are only allowed rough fish. dave

[tideye]

Isn't a sunfish a game fish. In MN it is considered a game fish but then everything in MN is a little different from other states.
Just curious,
Jim

[dave]

here in mo are game fish are all species of bass, walleye, the big three catfish, crappie, muskie, pickeral, and i belive that is it. althought i might have missed one. the sun fish family is completly bait fish hehe. although they are fine eating we have a very large abundance of them and they can be caught year around with little effort. dontn know about mn wild life codes but from the way you all talk you might as well have canada running the show for you( not to saying anything bad about ) what can you all use for bait fish up their????? dave

[tideye]

Here in MN you can't use game fish for bait. That includes sunfish, crappie, yellow perch, all trout, large mouth and small mouth bass, any catfish, walleye and northern pike. I may have missed a couple. Basically you can only use minnows. BTW I'm not complaining about the regulations they're just a little more strict than most states from what I've read on this site.

Jim

[Gumbo]

At least you get to use minnows. The only live bait we can use in Utah is worms.