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Freshwater Clams

5K views 9 replies 10 participants last post by  Jammer 
#1 ·
Hey guys Ive always been wandering how good these big and small freshwater clams would be for channels. The creek that I fish up here has tons ofem and this year Ive been using them when the water has been low enough to wade for them last night a lot of them washed up on shore after the rains and I will be completely honest they out fished chivers(livers) and shrimp 2 to 1. I guess its like some guys say match the hatch. For people who havnt used clams before break the shell and dig in with your fingers pull it out. If your fishing small channels you can get three to four pieces of bait out of one large clam if your fishin big channels use the whole thing hookem through the tounge and your set. If any body has tried them also please post and let me know how you have done. Im thinkling I will whip up some dip bait with them for next summer if they keep paying off
 
#2 ·
Clams are hard for me to come by here in southern California but there is a local reservior here that I remember fishing about 10 years ago and every now and then I'd see clams floating in the water, I'd just pry them open take out the meat and put it on a treble hook, worked great for channels problem was I never had enough clams. Thanks for the info!
 
#3 ·
If I had to choose one channel bait it would be clams. A friend of mine has a pond, he heard if he puts some clams in his pond it would help filter the water...well they went crazy and he has way too many. He has a 3'x3' chicken wire basket full of them. We took a bunch and shucked them put them in a ziplock bag and kept them on ice. They worked great but a Conservation Officer showed up and said we shouldnt be using them since the clams on the river are protected and they cant tell weather or not we got them from the river since they were shucked. He told us we could finish using what we had but dont do it anymore. Too bad cuz we nailed the channels all night untill the bait ran out.
 
#5 ·
on the mississippi river here in Illinois we used to shuck out a bunch of clams. layed them out on a cookie sheet and poured a can of condensed milk over them. let them sit in the sun for a few hours. worked great on trot lines, stayed on the hooks good. caught alot of fish with them, but the smell stays with you for a long time. kind of glad they're protected here, don't wanna smell them any more!!!
larry
 
#8 ·
I've never really caught any cats while using clams but i have caught a clam (3/4 lb) while fishing for cats... lol

Nah i can see why it would work... but all the times i've tried using them they've never worked... there are a ton in the lakes around usually 5-9 inches long and i see shells all the time underwater... seemingly unbroken just dead missing meat... don't know if its large cats finding and eating them or what but to eat a 9 inch clam its gotta be a fairly large catfish...

In the camp i work (not fishing, but an aquatic adventure camp) the kids started collecting clams in one of the nets by just reaching around and feeling for them... then they'd all toss them into the one net... lol had a couple of pounds of them before we made them throw them back... I was thinking about possibly going down and collecting a bunch and tossing them in a meat grinder and makign chum out of the small ones then using the bigger ones for bait... never know... could work...
 
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