Mimic Minnow Review

      First off I love these Mimic Minnows from Northland Fishing Tackle.  They work awesome in almost every situation and have caught me a ton of fish.  I will tell you how I use them and hopefully it will help you catch more fish with them.

Uses

• Northern Pike:  I have noticed that bright colors and fishing them fast works great for pike.  The bright colors like firetiger and bluegill have worked great for me.  I usually use the paddletail ones but the straight tail works good in some situations.  If they want something a little slower moving and gliding then I swith to the straight tail ones.
• Walleye, Perch, Crappie and other panfish: The Mimic Minnows have to be fished slow.  If there is a really light bite on then I just reel in stop for a second give a couple little twitches of the rod tip and start to reel for another few turns and repeat.  I switch up the number of rod top twitches every time I stop the bait.  I also vary the speed in which I retrieve the bait.  Crappie can be fished a little faster they seem to always hit it on a fall.  When fishing for Crappie I cast out wait 3 to 4 seconds, twitch the rod a couple of time and then reel in about 5 turns and repeat.  I also like to keep the rod tip up so the bait stays more suspended in the water column.

PaddleTail vs Straight Tail

• PaddleTail:  I always use a PaddleTail bait when fishing for Pike.  They require a faster retrieve and the thump the paddle tail makes in the water seems to attract more aggressive fish.  I also use these for walleye, crappie and perch.  It just depends on the weather conditions.  When it is sunny and fairly warm out I use the PaddleTail all the time varying the speeds of my retrieves to see what the fish are going after.  
• Straight Tail:  I was not turned onto the straight tail until about a year ago and I was missing out on a ton of fish.  This bait works great on walleye, crappie, perch and other panfish.  I try and imitate the last few twitches of a dying minnow on my retrieves.  If the fish seem more aggressive I will start to twitch the bait right when it hits the water.  If they are more lathargich then I will let it hit the bottom and continue with a very slow retrieve twitching a few times every 4 or 5 turns of the reel.  When it gets cold out the straight tail really starts to shine.  The slower movements and gliding ability just trigger the fish.  There have been times around here if you did not have any straight tail mimic minnows then you were not going to catch fish.  There has been times when I was about 5 feet away from my buddy and he had a PaddleTail on and I had a Straight Tail one on and I caught 4 fish to his 1.

Size Matters

• Pike and Muskie:  I use the 1/4oz for these.  They seem to like the bigger profile of the bait vs a little minnow profile.
• Walleye:  1/8oz to 1/16oz seem to work great.  I mainly us 1/16oz for early season walleye and move up in size as the year progresses
• Crappie:  1/16oz and under.  The 1/16oz are great when the fish are very active and will to chase the bait.  1/32oz really work great when the fish are a little lazier and not so aggressive.  The 1/32oz falls at a very slow rate and allows them time to get to the bait and suck it up.
• Perch:  1/16oz and under.  I fish these how I would fish for walleyes slow and methodical.  Twitching the bait as I reel in slowly
• Other Panfish:  1/32oz is what I use.  They usually are very aggressive and can get the small bait in their mouths.  You can jig them right off the dock or cast them out a little ways twitching them as you retrieve the bait.

Colors

• Pike and Muskie:  The bright colors like Bluegill, Firetiger and Glow Chub seem to work best on these.  They are very bright in the water and the fish pick them up very easily.  At night I go with the Glow Chub or the Glow Rainbow and charge them up when they stop glowing.  Pike seem to not be to aggressive at night so I mainly fish them during the day and go after walleyes at night.
• Walleye and Perch:  The main Mimic Minnows I use are Silver Shiner, Perch, Emerald Shiner and Gold Shiner.  They work great on any size walleyes or perch.  I use the Glow Rainbow in the rivers around here and they seem to attract bigger fish but just not as many.  The Firetiger, Bluegill and Glow Chub work great when the fish are aggressivly feeding on forage.
• Crappie and other Panfish:  They seem to really like the minnow like Mimic Minnows.  All the Shiner colors and perch colors work great on them.  For Panfish like Bluegill and Sunfish they will hit about any of them.  They are usually aggressive and the brighter colors really seem to attract them.  The brighter the color the sooner they pick them up.

Line Choice

• 1/4oz: I use a Berkley fireline in 15lb test and am waiting to try the new Bionic in 15lb test.  Since pike and muskies mainly go after these use a braided line.
• 1/8oz: I use 8lb Berkley XL and I am going to try 8 and 10lb Bionic Walleye line this year.  I use these over fireline because it seems like the walleyes, perch and crappies don't pick up the line as well as the braided line.  My buddy uses braided line all the time and he doesn't catch as many eyes and when he gets snagged its a struggle to not tear your hands up breaking the line or freeing it.
• 1/16 and smaller:  I use 6lb Berkley XL for the casting ability with that low memory and small diameter line.  Its really hard to get accross a river with a 1/16oz or even half way across with a 1/32 oz jig with any bigger diameter.  4lb test would work great also but we have a lot of trees and rocks around where I fish.  The 6lb seems to hold up fairly well and you don't automatically snap your line when you get a snag.

River vs. Lake

• River:  These Mimic Minnows have worked wonders in the rivers around here.  I use them maily for Walleye, Perch and Crappie.  If the water is running really fast then I have tried to switch to a heavier lure with not much success.  If the river is running normal then I use the 1/8oz and 1/16oz for walleyes.  I use 1/16oz down to 1/32oz for crappie and perch.  I have only caught pike on 1/4oz in the rivers.
• Lake:  I usually stick to 1/8oz on the lakes around here.  They catch everything from pike to perch.  If I am going for pike then I will stick to 1/4oz PaddleTails baits in bright colors and fish them fast.  If the bite is slow I will tip the mimics with a minnow head or a piece of worm.

Different Structures

• Silt Bottom:  I fish them very slow and look for pockets to twitch the bait in.  Switch up your reel and twitch speed every cast until you find a consistent one that is producing the fish that you want.
• Trees:  I have lost more of these on trees than any other structure.  I will cast around trees trying to keep just above them in the water.  Once I get just past the danger zone of getting snagged I will let it drop in front of trees and stumps and then fish them really slow on the way back.  Switching where I cast around the trees until I find a zone that most of the fish seem to be sitting in.
• Rocks:  I fish them a little faster than my very slow speed.  I have gotten snagged a lot on these but I have good luck at getting them out.  You may bend a few hooks and loose a few but it produced a lot more fish when fished at slow speeds.
• Moss and Weeds:  Fish them slowly over the weeds and tip with a minnow head or worm to hide most of the hook so you keep it pretty clean on the retrieve back.  You will have to clean them off about every cast but it is worth it when they are catching fish.

Shore vs. Boat

• Shore:  This is my go to Mimic Minnow situation.  I have caught more fish from shore with these than on a boat.  Around docks and just casting them around structure.  I have caught more fish from shore with these than any other bait in my tackle box since I started using them a few years ago.  Depending on the structure on how fast I fish them.
• Boat:  These do work good in 0-15 feet of water.  I cast them up around structure around the banks and fish them slowly back to the boat.  I tick them along the bottom sturring up the silt attracting fish.  I usually have more options in boats though and will switch up to cranks a lot of them time.  Rapala Esko's are one of my favorite cranks from a boat for shallow water walleye, bass and crappie.

This is what I use fishing from shore and a boat with Mimic Minnows

• Rod:  Gloomis GL3 SJR 783 6'6" Medium/Heavy Fast Action  or Scheels Outfitters SLG601MS 6' Medium Fast
• Reel:  Shimano Symetre 1000 FJ  or Abu Garcia Cardinal 402i
• Line:  Berkley XL 8lb test and I am going to try out the new Northland Fishing Tackle Bionic Walleye Line 8lb this year.

Thank you for reading my first blog.  I will be writing some more on products I really believe in.  To hopefully help you catch more fish.  You can also send me an email if you would like me to review something I have not done yet.  Also you can visit my website and check out what I have up for sale at www.tekoutdoors.co .  If you would like to get some Mimic Minnows for yourself you can click on the link below the picture of the Mimic Minnow.

Mimic Minnows