The stickleback minnow!

[Shack]

The stickleback minnow! This is a topic I have not seen before brought up in this forum. This forgotten and tossed aside minnow is the reject of the minnow world. Fisherman cringe when they see that stickleback in their bucket. It is rare you will see this little minnow. Your local bait store tries very hard, so your bait bucket is not graced with the presents of this minnow. Some people say it is a sign of a poorly manicured batch of minnows. I my self think different. If my bait bucket happens upon a stickle back, I look at it as a sign of luck. For when the fishing is just plain slow, I throw on the stickle back for a change of pace. I have had good results and bad. The other night out crappie fishing I found my self in a rut. I had purchased a scup of crappie minnows and had a very rare occurrence of having four sticklebacks in the scup. I stabbed my stickleback with my hook and dropped it down. With in five minutes I had a tap and a tug on the tip of my rod. It was getting late and my fishing partner and I had to leave, so I did not get a full run at this ugley minnow. I do know in past I have found my self in the same predicament as above and have caught fish on them. I do not have much experience with this minnow, because most bait stores do such a good job of weeding them out. I do know they are very active on the hook and give a differnt presents to the fish. They also stay very active for a long period of time, longer than a crappie minnow will. I have done some research and found a little bit of info on this minnow. The stickleback minnow is about 2-3 inches sometimes 4 inches in length. Its habitat is cool shallow water. It lives in freshwater and saltwater. The male stickleback builds a nest made out of stems and held together by mucous threads. The females lay their eggs, and then when they hatch, the male guards the nest and the young. So if you have not tried this minnow and things are slow. Throw it on and report back on what happens. Also feel free to report on any of the other weird minnows you get in your bucket. I know I get weird minnows when I get a scup of rainbows, but do not know what the name of this minnow is.

May your minnow bucket be empty at he end of the day,

SHACKBASH

[BpAki987]

My buddy was telling me 1 nite how you will never ever catch a fish on a stickleback. Well needless to say he caught 4 fish in a row and the last time the minnow finally fell off. He went to put it back on and he realized he had a stickleback. then he felt dumb.

[FishSystem]

Yes, It is another form of baitfish, food to our targets, but you will find more times that not, that your required to give an extreamly immidiate hook set with this bait. It is continuously spit out rather quickly by most predatorial fish, cuz the spiny back(its defense mech.). But you sure can use it as a different presentation, when they seem fed up with what you are giving them. I do still use the heads on my jigs, works just the same. Try clipping the tail fins off sometime...wow. Using a camera, you see and learn alot. fish kicks, but doesn't get anywere as quick. Cool.

[Hatchman9]

Quite a few years back I had an aquarium with a Smallmouth bass a perch and a sunfish. When I went to feed them one day there was a stickleback in the scoop of minnows and threw that in first to see if they would eat it. The Smally slammed it of course as soon as it hit the water, but spit it out quickly! The perch then took it in and spit it out also. The sunny poked at it but, it was too large for it. Anyway I left that stickleback in the tank for days and it was never eaten.

So if you do use one and your bobber goes down set the hook instantly!

[bassfishingnerd]

I had a largemouth in my tank for a long time. I would get those minnows too, but when you don't put any fresh minnows in there, that fish would eat a PB-n-J sandwich. Even those minnows got eaten eventually.