Has anyone tried live leeches as bait for bass? Of late I have had a hard time finding crawlers that will last more than a couple of days and with the warm weather I can forget keeping minnows any length of time. (wife won't allow minnows in the house) Seems that I should be able to keep leeches in the fridge for a week or so as long as I give them fresh water from time to time. Much of my fishing is done from shore in a medium sized pond and live bait is much more productive than artificials. I also fish with many youngsters from the neighborhood. Tom

If I can get some hefty bluegills on leeches you should be able to get plenty of bass with it.

Push come to shove, if I can catch some small 'gills I can use them for bait. (legal in Illinois as long as it is on the same water) Tom

Pegsguy yes they will work on Bass as well as most other baits, Hope this helps ya out.

I don't know about largemouths, but leeches will absolutely slay smallmouths.

I'm headed out today to find out. I am going to try a couple of presentations from floating one under a bobber to a walleye style spinner rig. I'll post results. Tom

try fishing them on a jig head

Got out yesterday with no success. spent quite a bit of my time dealing with tackle issues and we had some heavy weather come through on Fri, all in all less than ideal conditions. My local pond is very weedy this year and getting anything to the bottom is difficult at best. I am going to keep trying though as it takes no effort to set out a live bait rig while fishing something else.  Tom

I have seen people catch slab bluegill off short fat leeches. Never tried them myself.
TIGHT LINES!