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Went creek chub fishing today what a blast! caught a bakers dozen in an hour using a small chartreuse barbless jig and worms....Now how to fish with them....Thinking the smaller ones ill run a jig threw their lower lip and target some bass and walleye....But the 10-11 inchers I'm at a loss for....Any tips on riging the bigger ones?
Kill the bigger ones and salt and or freeze them and use them for pike during the ice season.
Good tip! Thats why i like this site! look out Constance lake this winter...
Where legal those xl would make a good Laker bait through the ice or even early season open water. Salt them for sure.
Cheers
How do you salt them?
I've actually started doing a combination of both salting and freezing.
To salt them you basically just coat them in corse salt until they loose most of their water content.
I found the frozen ones difficult to use because you have to thaw them to use them and then out on the ice they might re freeze. Or if you don't use them all you re freeze the leftover then thaw next time... they start to go mushy...
Now I sort of half salt them and the put them in the freezer. They don't freeze as solid as the fresh ones and the salting toughens up the skin.
I just coat them in salt and leave them for an hour or two someplace they can drain then rinse them off, pat dry, pop in ziploc and freeze.
Like Rugger says................Don't use table salt, get some "pickling" salt................Daniel
Remember you are limited to 120 bait fish in total, frozen, fresh or whatever. On Simcoe I have seen a CO count out 50 perch from a bucket, I wonder if they would count minnows?
Thanks for the heads up....I will stay way below 120.
A ten inch creek chub would be in my pan, fried well and served on toast....
they are not bad eating
As kids we ate them by the dozen, fried until the bones were crunchy, mostly 4-6" long.
What do they taste like....Are they boney....I woke up this mourning and i think the bigger chubs commited fish-a-suicide last night...I didn't have the top on tight enough on the container and they jumped out....My german short haired pointers had a good breakfast! Either that or they helped the chub escape to the river....
Used to catch tons of them behund my house when i was a kid.
I used to salt them in layers in those 5L ice cream tubs from knob hill farms. A layer of salt, a layer of minnows. This way i can reused the salt a few times before its too gooey.
http://www.lakemichiganangler.com/ti...ed_minnows.htm
I use the method above....
Interesting. So Rick, do the minnows totally freeze or do they remain still a bit flexible with this method. Generally if minnows freeze solid they will be mushy when thawed.Quote:
Originally Posted by rick_iles
Kinda off topic here but we seem to have wandered some...
For many years starting in the mid eighties a gang of 8-12 of us would go to Kipawa for a week. Mostly Laker fishing, specially for some guys who were more into partying than fishing the late pickerel bite. So I knew the local bait whole seller. Every Feb/March when he had his largest Emeralds in I would grab up 24 dozen or so and salt them for all the boats, as by then there was no live bait allowed. Like has been said the main thing is to use just enough salt to keep them from freezing solid while removing just enough moisture. In our case it was critical not to dry them out too much, as there would be no belly left to to put the needle through for the leader behind the gang troll. After the initial heavy salting to dehydrate them I would dry them, lay them out flat on pieces of butcher paper, sprinkle more salt on them and store them in layers in ziplock bags. Worked pretty good and the minnows were nice and straight so they tracked well.
So after all that, here's my tip of the day lol. :)
About seven years ago I finally tried a new method that I had been told about many years before. I bought 4 dozen Emeralds and dumped them in a small cooler with a jug of -40° windshield washer fluid. I kid you not, it works great. What I do is leave them in for 15 minutes, the vacuum seal them nice and flat. They never freeze, remain nice and pliable at O°F, and the stomach hangs in there pretty well. So 4 years ago I get a call saying "I got a nice batch of 3 1/2"+ "fish". So I bought a whack of them and still have some left. Here's what they look like as of today. I still wouldn't hesitate to use them for summer laker trolling, maybe drifting or bouncing a spinner rig for eyes, and jigging summer and winter for sure, whether whole or in pieces.
http://i1306.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3d138osg.jpg
Now I'm a huge believer in most fish liking salt, specially Lakers, so for example when I go to Charleston an hour away I put them in a bag with salt before leaving. Bait shop doesn't open till 8:30. Duhh. No prob. I'm also a huge fan of Emeralds as a prime bait for Lakers, Whities and Walleye, dead or alive.
Back to steelshot, those 11" chub are too big for Constance Lake lol. But like 35wailing said, Pike bait through the ice. Quick strike rig. In late Feb/March on the Ottawa near some spawning grounds those chub would be a prime bait. Shirleys is a good spot. ;)
Cheers