Best bait at the Strugeon challenge?

[Fishalot]

With the Big Strugeon challenge over and not a lot of smack talkin ifishers doing real well in it lets hear some feed back on what bait worked best. Start with the morning tacktics and results and then what was tried the rest of the day.

Fishalot

[Sea Nymph]

My boat wasn't officially entered but we were out there.

The only bait that produced for us was "Cowlitz Smelt" (no smellin' sauce - tried both ways) we also tried pickled squid but very few bites.

SN

[Flatfish]

I am not sure what didn't work for a lot of them this weekend. But next weekend I suspect there will be a lot of leftovers from todays meal of crow. Maybe a crow squid combo injected with a marinade of Bloody Marys. Or for the "In the know" crowd "Bloody Maries" Get it Maries at TBC. Man am I on fire or what!
Either that or it will rain and the carp with delusions will be forgotten. The silver bullets are in the starting blocks.
I will be using 4 dozen GnH of various species, a Rich-N-Tone for for more attraction, and a wet muddy dog for scent..
Mark and the dog who can officially hunt again on Wed.

[brshooter]

The last couple of trips out, pickled squid with a bit of herring scent seemed to be my most productive bait. The fish have been picky lately, so I take a bit of everything. I have been trying smelt, roll mop herring, sand shrimp, night crawlers, and pickled squid. I also take a variety of scents with me. We were so desperate yesterday, that Miss B Haven actually marinated his squid in Pete's bloody mary when he wasn't looking. :grin:
Seems like the smelt just get the bellies sucked out of them. Lots of little pests out there playing with your bait before the sturgeon get to them. I have snagged a couple of ********* setting the hook on what I thought might be one of those light biters. I have seen others doing that as well.

[No Wishin Just Fishin]

Hate to give up a 40 yr old secret but used the same as always to get our 4 keepers. Concoction is made up of concentrated anise oil(from the pharmacy) a touch of anchovy oil(guides choice) and mixed with wesson oil to keep scent on longer. Then soak the anchovies in for about 36 hours. Works ok with smelt too but prefer anchovies when fishing in the estuary.

[Fishalot]

Team Sneakin Out fish every bait known to man and some not known. The bait that worked the best was smelt with some kind of concoction Tilla drummed up. This stuff worked great, once the fish started to bite it we never tried another bait so i'm not sure if it was the bait or the bite coming on.

Fishalot

[Tilla]

The best ingredient was the Hot Pink dye to see who had binoculars in nearby boats.

[fish_on]

Baby octopus with crawdad oil has been working very well.