Northwest Fishing Reports

I know most people use fresh pumped sand shrimp, but is it important that it's alive when using it as bait? I'm asking because I usually see cured sand shrimp in plastic containers in bait fridges, and I'm wondering if it is any good to use, or just a waste of time. I'm not much of a mud bug fisherman so I though I'd ask yall opinions on it.

Yes it is. The cured ones are useless.

natetreat wrote:Yes it is. The cured ones are useless.

Good to know, thanks

live sand shrimp are best

Amen!

They get real fragile and start to stink real fast once dead. If they are alive in the morning you can get some use out of them for a couple hours but not much more.

If kept in the fridge with fresh bedding they will last quite a while. As long as they aren't crushing each other, or swimming in their shrimp doins, they will live happily. I've kept them in the bait fridge up to a week when I dig a ton of them up.

The cured shrimp don't even work for the bullheads, if anyone has caught a fish with them, more power to 'em. One reason buying sand shrimp is better than buying roe is that you know when they're fresh. They're still alive. Once they die, they let some sort of death scent out that makes fish leave them alone. I'm pretty sure that the cured stuff is not only unattractive to the fish, but actually salmon repellent.

Sturgeon like 'em, but then they love decaying corpses...