Live Fishing Bait -Part-4

June 18, 2009 by Daniel Ambrose

We continue our live fishing bait series with our discussion on some of our favorite bugs. So if your interested in crickets, flies, and some other goodies like that, you are going to want to pay attention to this post.

The way I see the insects is there are the swimmers, the crawlers, jumpers, and of course, the fliers. All of which are like candy to different fish. They cannot help themselves when they come in contact with their favorite one, because they see it so rarely it becomes a treat.

Crickets and grasshoppers are a fishing favorite, because like nightcrawlers, some fishermen can catch them as they need them, and for others they are commonly available at your local live fishing bait store.

Crickets are usually found in wooded areas or fields, especially the dark-colored cricket, commonly known as a field cricket. There is a gray cricket that is commercially raised and sold in bait shops and pet stores.

Grasshoppers like grassy or weedy fields. Most are 1-2 inches in length. The dark colored grasshoppers are some shade of gray or brown and live on the ground. The green shaded crickets live on plants.

Mayflies are a fish favorite and they are a very interesting choice as they go through many changes in their short life cycle. Of course this is one of those which came first things, the egg, or the mayfly because their short life is so ever changing.

The mayfly life cycle is something to be aware of as they can be used as live fishing bait in several different stages of their metamorphosing life. So lets look at their short life and see something amazing.

1) A mayfly mates with the opposite sex while in flight.

2) After mating the female drops her eggs in the water.

3) The eggs sink, adhering to plants, rocks or other things at the bottom.
4) The larvae hatches in about six months. They eat and grow for about five months going through several molts -changes.
5) When full grown they swim to the surface.

6) Now it splits and sheds its skin -molts, and in seconds it has wings that harden.

7) The mayfly then flies off to nearby vegetation where it stays for a day, or two

It molts into an adult where it lives just long enough to mate and drop its eggs, except a few live for weeks.

Its the many changes and short life of this live fishing bait that gets it so much attention in this post, but we are going to pause here, we will say its in memorial for such a short lived fishing bait and we hope you will return to view the next post in this Live Fishing Bait series.