Shiners up north

[BertBuddy]

Anyone know why they aren't selling shiners anywhere up north? Saw a sign in Greenbush saying you couldn't get them anywhere. I also heard something about the shiners didn't run this year and that is why the fish are so hard to find because they are just scattered out in the lake and not following the shiners around. Any ideas?

[Boar]

U can get frozen shinners, i cant remeber the last time I fished with live ones. they die when ya hookem any way. fishing is tough right now cause of rollercoaster barometer, nothing is stable. Sat. morning wind was outa the east then swithced from the north now its out the south. Makes a tough bite.

[CANOPY SAM]

Mainly due to the second part of what you said. Most local bait dealers depend almost entirely on the fall shiner run into the Rainy River to stock up on minnows for the ice season. The fall shiner run was virtually non-existent in 2012. Those that were caught were pretty much all bagged and frozen, and most of those were only small shiners.

[vman11]

Frozens are more effective in most local's opinions anyways.

There are days I only fish with frozen shiners, even on dead sticks. Whole chubs on a set line and chub heads or whole frozens on a jig have been working well.

[BartmanMN]

When I fished the river during Deer opener and the week after, Lucky's bait was the only bait shop in town that had live shiners and he had big ones. All other bait shops were empty or trying to sell the smallest live shiner known to man.

[lakowoods]

The smallest shiners known to man are the best bait alotta days on lake of the woods. my opinion the big buffalo ones I call the big shiners are to big. all the trophies walleyes I have mounted in my store were caught on smaller frozen shinners. yes the shiners ran big time every night last fall but they were small pinheads buzillions of them. I caught alot of bigger shiners 3rd week of september one night only after that just liitle guys ran till ice up every night.

[BertBuddy]

Sounds good. I tried frozen shiners this weekend on many different jigs, but couldn't seem to get anything to bite. I would get a bunch of fish to come look at the bait on the vexilar but couldn't get them to take it. I tried letting it sit there, fast jigging, slow jigging, continually pulling up but couldn't get them to bite. I didn't know if maybe it was because they were frozen or not and was looking at trying some live shiners if I could find them