12-20-2004, 07:30 PM
When I was first trying out ice fishing on Strawberry a couple of years ago we weren't doing any good. Someone leaving the ice handed their leftover frozen minnows. We started getting a LOT of hits, but few fish and lost a lot of minnows. We ended up rigging a 'stinger' hook in the tail of the fish, as well as the one through the head, then we started catching the fish. Nearly all of the trout we have caught on Strawberry using minnows ice fishing were caught with the hook in the tail. You can easily make your own stinger hook by simply tying another hook into your line, or you can buy stinger hook rigs at Sportsmans. Most are some kind of treble hook to have one hook in the minnow and one or two poking out.
Some will argue that the fish might see that hook, but I think some people give fish a little too much credit. I don't think the fish is sitting there thinking "it looks like dinner, it smells like dinner, but there's that dang hook which mean's I'm going to become dinner"
I have caught enough fish with this rig that I don't bother trying to bury the whole hook in the fish. Almost everytime one shows on the finder in the area of the minnow, he will hit the rig.
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Some will argue that the fish might see that hook, but I think some people give fish a little too much credit. I don't think the fish is sitting there thinking "it looks like dinner, it smells like dinner, but there's that dang hook which mean's I'm going to become dinner"
I have caught enough fish with this rig that I don't bother trying to bury the whole hook in the fish. Almost everytime one shows on the finder in the area of the minnow, he will hit the rig.
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