There are a couple different ways you can rig up minnows when you’re using spoons or other lures for walleye. By and large, we often use just a minnow head. If you pinch it off right behind the gills, you’ll pinch that air bladder down and you’ll notice that when you drop the lure down into the water, that head will hang vertically. You can jig this presentation with big strokes or small, and that minnow head gives just a little bit of a target with bit of smell and taste in the water.
However when fish are off, there is a slightly different setup to try. Hook the minnow the same as you would normally through the hard part of the skull, but pinch that minnow further back instead of just behind the gills. Now, when you put the minnow head in the water, it floats horizontally and can still wobble around because it leaves that air bladder in the minnow.
When you pinch the minnow up close near the gills, that whole presentation hangs vertically so the fish have to swing the entire hook into their mouth. This isn’t a problem when the fish are aggressive and the bite is on, but on those off days it seems that they just aren’t moving as much water through their gills to be able to suck that vertical presentation in. On the off bite days, it just seems that the fish can get a horizontal presentation in their mouth better and leaving the air bladder can make all the difference to let the fish keep sucking it down until they finally get to the hook.
The next time you’re baiting your spoon or glide bait with a minnow head, keep in mind these two different types of bites. A lot of times, those aggressive presentations are all you need, especially when you’re trying to find fish or during the prime times of the day. However, when fish are coming up and just hanging on it and not punching that bait, you want to go to that half minnow with the air bladder still intact. More often than not, if you go to that half minnow trick on an off bite you’ll hook into a few more fish during the day.
