Bait Presentation

[Guest]

Been fishing a farm pond by Moville, IA for Bluegill and Crappie. Bite has been slow all season, a few gills here and there with no Crappies. Here's my question; I see alot of guys talking about fishing with a minnow head. How do you hook it? Thru the lips, eyes, ???, etc. And do you just use the head or part of the body.

We've just been fishing with small jigs and a wax worm. Not one day out of about 8 trips I could brag about.

BB Jinx

[Guest]

BB,

Well if you let me know sometime I imagine I could help you catch these crappie! When I fish with minnow heads I just pinch the head off and hook it through the eyes.

IceMan

[Guest]

When I use a minnow head for pearch, crappie, and walleye I pinch it off about in half or behind the head. Put it on a castmaster or the pilkie with a drop hook is my favorite. Doesn't seem to matter how you hook it, but hook it good because you will be doing a lot of jigging.

[Guest]

I hook a real small minnow head on a tear drop and have some luck jiggin for gills. Dont be afraid to try something different it just might work .

[Guest]

BB Jinx. What I would like to know is why are these anglers just using the head. Is it because of better jigging action, scent, for short hits or what. What is the logic. Why is it better than a full live minnow?

[goodyy7]

Actually, the answer is sometimes all of the above. Scent often times triggers fish, which is obvious, so the minnow head fills that bill. SOmetimes, the fish want that live bait, but just not the whole thing. Other times, the whole minnow is just too big for the fish that are biting. It really kind of depends on the situation. I was at 12-Mile res. sat and was catching a lot of eyes. I switched over to a medium sized jigging rapala in hopes of triggering some bigger fish, which I didnt. However, I caught a lot of fish but they wouldnt TOUCH IT without the head on there, they would just come and look and swim off. The minute I put a head on the fish were back on it. I have heard of tiping with a whole minnow before of some jigs like that as well. It really is just giving the fish what they want. Tiping with a fish eye I hear is also great, once again adding that scent and something extra that trigger the fish.

goody

[Guest]

Was hoping to use this minnow head technique on Monday. Didn't get a chance. The wind blew 30 - 40 miles an hour all day, so we were forced to fish for gills because of a small wind block. Did OK, not great. I'll have to try the minnow head option for gills also, didn't even think about that option. Always use a wax worm.

Won't be fishing now for two weeks, hopefully the bite in this area gets better by then. Also hope the water frezes back up. Actually lost a few inches of ice and saw open water beacause of that 5 day warm spell we had. Temp never got below freezing.