RE: minnows under a float
2009/08/12 18:27:50
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Minnows under a float work very well under most water conditions for Erie sthd. Correct shotting pattern is very important with minnows or any other bait. Use the smallest shot you can, Blackbird is a good choice. I use gremlin size B round earless shot because I have a hard time seeing, adding the smaller blackbird shot to my leader especially with
cold hands.
I now fly fish 95% of the time, am no longer intrested in just fishing for sheer numbers of fish. I can fish every day from Sept thru Dec, all the Erie sthd tribs are within an hrs drive of my house. If your time on the tribs is limited, you'd do well to float fish with quality bait.
Minnows are a quality bait but live, a royal pain in the****to carry around. My favorite baits are: 1. raw bags, preferably brown trout
2. raw sthd skein
3. home made pin/bead head jig, about 1/64 oz tipped with wax worms
4. red worms or half of a crawler
Worms are a very good sthd bait, over looked by many fishermen and often take fish when nothing else seems to work.
Hope this helps, guess the point I'm trying to make is, minnows are a good bait but not worth the hassle of carrying around, Spawn, jigs, wax worms, garden worms are really all you need to consistently catch sthd under most, if not all water conditions.