how do you fish a minnow head

[ilcatchum]

I am new to ice fishing and have read numerous reports and don't understand the minnow head fishing. What do you do cut the head off and jig the head?

[Cliff Wagenbach]

That is exactly what you do.

I also sometimes use only about 1 inch of the tail section.

Both methods work very well when the fish are finicky and will hit only a smaller bait. this method also releases a lot more smell into the water, which will many times get the fish to hit a bait better.

At times using a small live crappie minnow works better then using a whole larger minnow on a jig to.

Cliff

[ilcatchum]

Thanks I will give it a shot. The fish seem to be biting light and often are letting the jig go on the rattle reel. They will pull it down under the ice 2 to 3 feet and then here comes your bobber. Then there is nothing no more bites.

I will give the head and the tail a try thank you.

[slick814]

Don't forget to pinch that head off!!! leaves a little of the innards hanging, and for some reason, it's been my 'sperience that the fish like the dangly stuff better than a nice clean cut... not sure why, but then again, I'm not a fish...

[Steve Foss]

ilcatchum:

Also, make sure you put enough weight on to make your bobber barely float. The less resistance a fish feels when it takes the bait, the more likely it is to hold on to the bait, and a bobber sitting high in the water offers more resistance than one barely floating.

[upnorth]

I use the minnow head thing when I am fishing with Jigging Spoons. It seems to give the spoon better action and still has some stink associated with it. I think that and the little bit of action from the streaming entrails is why pinching the head off is better than cutting it off.

[ddsbyday]

I have found a lot of times that perch will grab a minnow and run with it for 1 or 2 ft. If you don't have an underwater camera to see what is short biting you I would drop a crappie minnow on a tiny jig down. You will then find out the short bites. Roughly 1/2 hour after the short bites stop is when I would want to be fishing. The perch get quiet when the eyes move in.

[Steve Foss]

ddsbyday's experience matches mine. Perch don't have good low-light vision and tend to hug the bottom or cover when it starts getting dark. Walleyes in a lot of lakes key on perch at dawn and dusk, and that's a matter of the walleyes getting right in there on the bottom and chasing them up. A chubby darter, jigging rap or spoon like the angel eye or buckshot rattle in perch pattern is a good bet then, and I'll often slam it against the bottom to raise dust like an alarmed perch darting off the bottom, and then suspend it a foot above the dust cloud and jig it there. On poor visibility lakes like V, I'd use hot perch colors, but prefer a more natural perch pattern in clearer water.

Sometimes it works.

Sometimes it doesn't.