Scoop of fatheads in a mason jar?

[Bdeanpete]

I finally made it out on the ice for my first attempt at spearing this season. The good news is that all of my equipment functioned as it is supposed to and it was great to be back at it however, no pike were seen in nearly 4 hours despite assurances from an old timer who was set up nearby. 

As we were packing up, we got to talking about decoys. He told me of a technique they used to use whereby they would put a scoop of fatheads in a mason jar, fill it completely with water to eliminate any air bubbles, cover with plastic wrap, tie it off with a piece of mono and dangle the jar full of minnows in the hole as the decoy. He said it was supposed to mimic a school of minnows  

Has anyone ever heard of this or was the old guy yanking my leg?  I can't see what the advantage would be over any other decoy setup. 

Have any of you guys come across any other unique spearing techniques?

[MJ1657]

It's been talked about on here a few times. From what I remember there has not been any great success with it. 

You should try it though and let us know what happens. 

[RebelSS]

Oh, you bet!!! That's an old one! I think it works a lot better in Summer than Winter, though. That's even shown how do it in the old Complete Fisherman by Buzzacott, the fishermans/sportmans bible from 1903. My uncle used to do that.

I did it northern fishing a few times; didn't notice a lot of difference, but watching on camera, a few Northerns would zoom up to it. I think there was something about not being able to do that anymore because of some regs...not sure, it's been like 10 years since I did that.

[Boar]

my father and grand father would take me spearing s a little kid, and i know this have mention and im sure comonly used to this day, but they'd dangle a shinny beer can. pike we all know are jus curious my nature. Ive heard of the minnow jar method but havent heard of great success.

[Bobby Bass]

my father and grand father would take me spearing s a little kid, and i know this have mention and im sure comonly used to this day, but they'd dangle a shinny beer can. pike we all know are jus curious my nature. Ive heard of the minnow jar method but havent heard of great success.

Hope that is an empty beer can, would be a waste of a full one!

[MJ1657]

Alot of days an old pair of underpants would bring them in. 

[Neighbor_guy]

Alot of days an old pair of underpants would bring them in. 

I told you to stop spearing with merk!!! Your scaring the kids!!!

[smurfy]

That's funny neighbor guy!!!

Why not just use a live sucker rather then mess with a jar.

[pikestabber]

Some days you could use the most beautiful sucker in the world, spray it down with "Musk of Esox" (I should patent that), and it could swim the most beautiful dance of the sea...and you still might not generate any interest. Other days you could tie a tree branch to a winch cable and get the entire neighborhood to show up. It's a different day every day in the spear shack, and even weather patterns don't always generate the results you'd think... In other words, minnows in a jar will work some days, but I think the tried and true decoy + live sucker combo, or just one or the other, works best most days. My .

[smurfy]

got that right pikestabber!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[skippie]

My grandpa used to put gokdfish in a mason jar, Game warden stopped by and he would break the jar with his spear.

[Dooley87]

I did try this once except I used a 2 liter pop bottle. It didn't lure any pike in but my spear shack was in a good perch area and occasionally you would get nice perch to cruise through the hole, only problem was they wouldn't hang around very long. Until I used the minnow bottle trick. They would attack the bottle in an attempt to grab a minnow from the school, at times I would have 20 perch in the hole at once and as soon as I dropped my minnow on a hook down they would instantly gobble it up assuming a minnow got away from the school, It was fun and effective for perch.   

 

The 2 liter bottle is to the right of my decoy in the picture, you can see the red cap and notice all the perch surrounding it.