IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
Ice Fishing Tips -Check your local regulations! => Ice Fishing Live Baits and Plastics => Topic started by: huntneiowa on Dec 18, 2017, 03:49 PM
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I hear all the rage about just using a minnow head. I’ve never tried it but might this year, my question is what do you do with the rest of the minnow? Toss it in the ice hole as kinda like chumming, or just keep them for lunch?
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I usually start using them when I’m re-baiting a jigging rod or tip up. I’ll take the dead minnow (or what’s left) and throw it on a spoon or jigging rapala etc. I won’t take a live minnow and pinch the head off though, I think that’s a waste. Never tried the plastics so I’m interested to hear some opinions on them :tipup:
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But do you throw the rest of the minnow down the hole?
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I had a similar question a few days ago. I'm broadening my horizons by employing a jig rod to augment my tipups so I'm somewhere on that learning curve.
There was some good discussion on that thread. You can see it here: https://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=350140.msg3732276#msg3732276 (https://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=350140.msg3732276#msg3732276)
My first experience had me using the head, then the tail and lastly the midsection(s) and catching fish on all of them. I do believe that lure action changes somewhat depending on the piece used and the placement/hooking method of said hunk o' meat.
Rather than dismember a live minnow I'd saved and salted a few floaters from the minnow bucket from that morning.
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I will use a minnow head on a spoon. Depending on the body of water I'm fishing I may step on the rest of the minnow and put it on a dead stick setup. Crappie seem to love this at times. On one occasion minnows that had been stepped were the only thing Crappie would bite on.
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I use the minnows head but keep the body just in case the fishing get hot and I run low on bait..