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How To Hook A Minnow 7 Ways - Seven Best Ways To Hook A Minnow Dead Or Alive
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Jul 19, 2022
Learn more at https://fishingatwork.com/how-to-hook-a-minnow/ Learning how to hook a minnow can be a weird thing. You just spent a bunch of money on a bucket of minnows and a fancy minnow bucket and you don't won't to waste them. Maybe you even just bought a bag of dead salted minnows. Either way you will need to learn how to hook them properly or they will get off or will hurt a live minnow. Your goal is to catch fish and not start an aquarium. Let me show you 7 great ways to hook a minnow whether it is dead or alive.
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Hello, I'm Dwight Norris of FishingAtWork.com, and today we're going to talk about how to
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hook a minnow. Stay tuned. Hooking a minnow doesn't actually have to be a very hard thing
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There are many different ways to do it, and it truly depends on if the minnow is alive
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or dead. I have some Emerald Shiners here that I got online and they're salted and preserved
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so you can carry them around with you and don't have to worry about a minnow bucket or any kind of like aeration, which is good. But for the most part, fish do like live bait
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better than dead bait. So what are the ways to hook a minnow? Today I'm going to show you
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seven ways to hook a minnow, which is more than most people think about
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Most people just think about the live bait versions, but it's important to think about
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the dead bait version because a dead fish and a live fish are different. So, first, let's talk about the difference between
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a live fish and a dead fish. One of the main things is that a dead fish is actually more fragile
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As you'll see, it's easy to break and bend this. The backbone is kind of deteriorating, and a lot of the juices inside, and the skin itself
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is easy to tear. So when you put a hook in, whether it's a big hook or a small hook, most
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likely during casting, you're going to lose that fish. Especially if you hook it through
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hook it through the lips because it's going to break off easier. It's a dying fish. It
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doesn't have any strength left. Now if you did that with a live bait, it's less likely
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that it would break off during the cast. This is a very important thing. Most people don't
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think about it. But once you hook on that dead fish and you rip it out there to the
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surf or wherever you're going and the hook goes one way and the bait goes another, then
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you start to think about like, oh man, this is wasted a minnow. Not cool. So let's work
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on the top seven and I'll tell you which ones are good for live and which ones are good
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for dead and which you can do in both. So when it comes to hook, you can use different
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sizes, but make sure you always use a thin wire specifically when you're using live bait
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The thin wire will allow you to hook it in a couple of ways, which look dangerous, but
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actually don't hurt the fish enough for it to die. It'll keep moving, it'll keep running away, it'll keep shaking and attracting fish because
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it looks like it's hurt, because it is, but it's not dead yet
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And that means a slower, easier to eat forage for bass or any other fish, really
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So that's what we want to mimic. So, the first way to pull this out here, hook a minnow is through the tail
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So you got the tail here and you really want to hook it right before the tail ends There a little bit of meat before the tail And you just want to break it come right through there Right where the spine would be and go right through
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And there you go. Now, this is something you want to use more with live bait
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Because when you hook it, the fish is going to be trying to get away
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And it's fin, it's a tail fin, it's not going to work as well. It's going to look like a very slow piece of forage
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Here, it's going to look like a dead fish and it's going to depend on you to give it action
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So that's number one. Number two is to come right on the back, the dorsal fin of it
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You don't want to hook under the dorsal fin. You want to hook under the meat that's in the dorsal fin without going through the backbone
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It's a very small spot, specifically on Emerald Shiner. If you have a golden shiner, it will be a little easier
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So, you see the middle there, that's the dorsal fin right here
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I'm going to go right under that, and there was no, you'll notice there was no, like
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nothing stopping you. If you hit something, that's the backbone. You're about to kill your minnow
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Go just above that. Look closely, you'll see exactly where I came through, above that lateral line
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That specifically is usually where the backbone is on this particular type of minnow
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And this will just try to run and escape and go everywhere and won't be able to move that much
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You won't be able to go very fast. So this is a really good jigging spot for your live minnow
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That's number two. Number three is through both lips. Now this is good for one reason and bad for another
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I think you know where the lips are. They're right here and you just, boop, you go through them and here you have it
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Now this is the way I used to do when I was a kid and the fish can swim more freely
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But the most important part, one, it's alive, two, it can move around like crazy, but three
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fish usually eat head hurt. This means that once you get a fish, you feel the fish on there, you want to hook immediately
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You don't want to wait, like a frogler or whatever, or like the other two ways, on the back and in the middle
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You have to wait for it to engulf the whole minnow, which means a couple more seconds
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But with this way, you feel it tug, you tug back. And it should be on there, no problems, because they like to eat head first
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So that's number three. So you're like, what? What the heck other way is there? Really
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So, here's another good way. But this is only good for dead fish because you're going to
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probably kill it. And that's right through the eyeball right here and then coming out
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the mouth. I'll show you. You don't want to puncture it straight through the eyeball. You
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want to come like under the eyeball. Make sure I can do it right. And out the mouth
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out the mouth. See? I went under the eyeball and out the mouth here. This is a good spot because
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the eye socket right there actually has some extra strength whether it's alive or dead
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And when you're casting it, it's important to hook to a spot
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that has some strength some structure left And this is a good spot for dead fish This is number four Now number five is a little different
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That's coming through the mouth and out the gills. You can go left or right
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Just going to go into the mouth like I'm doing like a Texas rig worm and out through the grill
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And there you have it. Through the mouth and out through the gill. That's also another
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hardy spot. Not as hardy as going through the eye socket, but still hardy enough to
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to work on a live fish or a dead fish. I have found that if your barb is long
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enough, a minnow could swim off this thing this way. So I don't recommend it for
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live bait, but you can do it that way if you're very careful and don't hurt their
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gills, you could do that way, and that way you won't lose them off the lips, then we
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rip the lips off, and two, the fish will bite it from head first and you'll get the bite
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immediately and you'll do your hook set immediately. Very important. That's number five
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Number six, number six is going through one lip. When I say one lip, I mean the bottom
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I've done a bottom lip. You could do the top. You could do the top. The top would mean you would probably go through their nose and hurt them a lot. So it's not really good for live bait if you do it through the top lip. But if you do it through the bottom lip, you can do it on a dead fish. But the problem there again is that it's not a very hardy spot. So it's a very tight-lipped fish. But I can do it and there you go. Just go through the bottom lip
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It looks like it's barely hanging on, and that's because it is. And this could make you lose minnows when you cast
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And if you do get it in the water, that first bite is probably going to pull it off
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And it will also be head first, which means it's in its mouth. So it's very, very important that you hook it immediately on getting a bite when you
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hook set it through the mouth. Now number seven is not for live fish
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This is for dead fish. something that I came up with years ago, but I used again just yesterday when I was testing
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these here locally. And it's really a couple of different things. I'm doing one, the hook
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through the mouth, and then out the gill, and then I'm hooking it right below its back
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just like I did on the live bait, and then I'm hooking it through its tail. This way
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is best for a dead fish because sometimes they're just so juicy and wrong
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If you get the wrong brand and they let it sit around for a while and don't salt it properly, it's not sturdy
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The skin's not hard, and it's just malting, which is nasty. But that would still allow you through this three-hook method to make it work
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Now, are you harming a fish when you do this live, lady
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No, you're actually doing three different ways that I just talked about
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to hook live bait all at once So technically yes this could work with a live minnow but it be kind of mean wouldn it Sure whatever you want to say whatever you want to do But one that minnow will not be coming off But two the minnow won be able to move naturally through the water
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because you've stopped it by hooking it three times. So that's the reason you shouldn't use it on live bait
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But hey, I'm a tester. So test to see how it works for you. Let's show you
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exactly how that works. So one, I've come through the gills here
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I'm going to bring it through. Now he's on the line. I'm going to come back around. Find my old hole I made
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There it is. Goes right through my old hole. Bring it through again
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Now this is the spot where you'll probably kill a fish, if I think about it. The eye hole is pretty big
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Once that goes through that hole, the fish is going to be like
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I don't like you. Now I've done it twice. And to make sure this puppy stays on
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even when casting or even getting hit hard by a huge bass
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boom. So there we go. Let's show here. It's going through the
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the gill, going through the body, then going through the tail, and that's it
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Then, get your little mini rod. Give it a cast
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So, I hope this has answered your questions about how to hook a minnow, and if you want
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it more than the normal three ways or four ways or five ways you've seen out there on
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YouTube or your blog post, something's nibbling it, then this video has done it
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So, if you want any more great informational posts, please go to fishing at work.com, my
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my blog post, or go to the YouTube channel, and there's lots of great content going up
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you know, maybe weekly on YouTube now, and every other day on my blog post. Also, if
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you want to get, you know, the 10-step process to go fishing at work, PDF, for free, go to
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fishing at work.com, and it's there. You don't even have to give me your email address. I'm
12:48
talking, click the button, it downloads. Nothing else. But if you need more information and
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you want to learn more about how you can go fishing more often, I have my everyday fishing system, which you can get online, and it's a mere $4.99 right now. I'm in the beta phase
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and I want some feedback. So if you go to the website and go all the way to the bottom, right on the homepage, you'll see a link that goes to that and goes to the page that talks
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about my story and how everything worked, and you can get it from there. So I'm Dwight
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northfishing.org.com. Get out there and do some minnow fishing. Music
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