MINNOW SMACKDOWN

I love fishing for crappie.  I love the thump and I love how they taste.  There's not much I don't like about pursuing a tasty slab.  Over the years I'd consider myself a jig fisherman, but really have no qualms about using live bait either.  And in the summertime minnows just might be the ticket to loading a boat with lots of crappie.

I got to know Eric Sher through another crappie story on spider rigging I did with Nick Neff.  Both are avid crappie anglers and there's no shortage of slabs in either of their boats.  During the summer, Eric has been using quite a few minnows and done REALLY well.  A couple Saturdays ago Eric was kind enough to invite me along for a fishing trip to Melvern Reservoir for a little experiment I had in mind.

Eric would use minnows while I would use nothing but a jig.  We'd try the straight-up debate to see whether live bait could outfish a jig.  While I'm not the best jig fisherman, I'm no slouch, either.  But on this day I'd quickly discover just how productive the real thing can be.

Only 30 minutes into the first brush pile my destiny was set.  Eric had caught 25 fish with four of these longer than the reservoir's 10-inch minimum length limit.  Me?  I caught four fish with two keepers.  But the kicker was that I was getting as many, or even more, hits on my jig.  The fish just weren't sucking in or holding on to my offering.  But once they gummed Eric's minnow, they were generally coming to the boat.

Eric Sher and the "Minnows Rule!" experiment.

The next few hours provided more of the same.  Eric caught tons of fish, most of which were shorts, but the minnows were definitely producing more fish.  When the dust settled after about five hours of fishing Eric had tallied 111 total fish with 13 keepers.  I caught 31 fish with eight keepers.  My only accolade of the day was I had two of the three largest fish. 

But to show you our little experiment wasn't REALLY scientifically accurate, Eric called on my way home and said we actually had 26 fish in the livewell, rather than our mentally-tallied 21.  We laughed about our mistake realizing it's really hard to keep track of fast fishing.  I imagine most of the "extra" keepers were Eric's since he had the most reason for confusion due to his sheer numbers.  I told him he had to throw the jig guy at least one bone and let me claim one additional keeper.

It was a neat experiment on a beautiful morning.  Eric was a gracious host and didn't even brag about whipping my tail.  There's no doubt minnows can catch fish and I won't be ashamed to grab a few for future summer trips.