Anyone tip their jigs, flies or lures with natural bait?

[Damon Toney]

I've been looking to experiment with adding a lure to my natural bait. I crappie and strip bass fishermen who tip with minnows and eels all the time. Do any of you do this while targeting bluegill?

[Allen Morgan]

Have you tried a Drift Sock with your boat?  I use one with my kayak to slow down a drift.

[Damon Toney]

Yeah, I have a drift sock. I don't always carry it with me.

[John Sheehan]

Drift socks are the ticket sometimes .

[LedHed]

We like using custom jigs tipped with crickets. I tie my jigs with enough space to pin a cricket on it. The sickle style hook is a great for tipping. I fish the combo either slow trolling or casting & counting down.

For lake Havasu we fish with custom jigs and a nose hooked European nightcrawlers. We fish the combo the same as we do at Lake Perris but more dragging on the bottom.

[carl hendrix]

Damon--  something for you to try;; I just found this out last year;; proved to be extremly deadly on blue gills.  use a dropper on a popping bug !  take a bug like a legion bream killer; or a june bug- tie it - about 2 feet behind; and onto the hook of a popping bug;; very deadly !!  several times I catch 2 blue gills at one time !! the dropper will slowly sink; use the popping bug as a sort of a float;; blue gills attack the popper; and generally;;  really hit the dropper hard !

[Allen Morgan]

This is often called a "Popper-dropper" (or "hopper-dropper" if you use a foam grasshopper).  I use them myself A LOT when fly fishing.  Sometimes the strikes on the dropper are so hard and sudden, the popper/hopper gets pulled down with enough force to create a splash just as if the popper was getting struck.

[Ronald A Wilson]

I use gulp alive small minnows or leeches ,sometimes the crickets ,they all work well on the small jigs and small spoons that i use.In the early part of the year when i walleye fish,usually i will use half of a crawler on my jig,lots of times i will save the small remaining piece of crawler,and use that small piece on my small bluegill baits later in the day.I dont think you can go wrong using gulp alive products.Just my opinion.