EFFECT EFFECT

BY STEPHAN LUKACIC

Pounding Bottom

BANGING THE LAKE bottom with a dead minnow on a heavy jig or specialty lure is one of the most reliable ways to catch burbot through the ice. With some downsizing and a little more finesse, however, the tactic can be just as effective with other species throughout the year. The next time you’re jigging for walleye or bass, try subtly hitting the bottom with an 1⁄8-ounce jig tipped with a single floater. You may be surprised at how much interest you drum up by mimicking a baitfish foraging in the muck. As with standard jigging, don’t overdo it, and add long pauses between thumping sequences.

Aneeds Salt

HOPPING & CASTING

DEAD MINNOWS ROCK on Texas and Carolina rigs, as well as on drop-shot rigs, even when you’re throwing them. They also excel when you’re hopping, swimming or skipping a jig horizontally. There’s a good case for using soft-plastics in those scenarios, but if you have a few floaters in the bucket, why crack into a pack of the expensive stuff ? Unlike live minnows that need to be hooked where it won’t kill them, you can push a hook right through a floater’s skull so it holds on better. You’ll still lose more dead minnows than you would lose tougher plastics, though, so check your bait often.

AN EFFECTIVE AND inexpensive way to preserve leftover dead minnows for later use is to cure them with salt. Drenched in salt and stored in small containers, minnows can potentially last for months if you keep them refrigerated. Just be mindful that they’ll count towards your legal possession limit of minnows. Also be sure to check all other bait regulations in your area. If you’re fishing outside of your home Bait Management Zone in Ontario, for example, minnows need to be discarded after two weeks. As well, both dead and live minnows (and leeches) cannot be transported out of the BMZ where they were purchased or captured. For links to all fishing regs across Canada, go to www.outdoorcanada.ca/fishingregs.

Trolling

DEAD MINNOWS REALLY shine when trolled in conjunction with spinning harnesses and spoons. Here, my go-to walleye technique is to lip-rig a dead floater on each hook of a standard worm harness and troll it at low speeds, just as you would with a crawler. The difference is the minnows will swim and sway independently, adding plenty of erratic action to the presentation. I’ve caught loads of walleye over the years on this set-up, including some of my personal best fish. Dead minnows also work exceptionally well on singlehook harnesses.

If the fish aren’t hitting a doublehook rig, I dial down the action using a single-hook spinning lure enhanced with a stinky floater. For example, I catch piles of trout and walleye trolling at depth with a Lucky Strike Victor Spoon Spinner and a dead minnow. An undulating Williams Wabler is also a beautiful thing with a floater lip-hooked on one barb of the treblehook. This deadly combo has been just the ticket on many occasions when lethargic suspended lakers needed a little extra incentive. OC

HALIBURTON, ONTARIO, FISHING GUIDE STEPHAN LUKACIC NEVER LETS DEAD MINNOWS GO TO WASTE.