Itty bitty verses small minnows

Me and my dad fished today from daylight to 11 am or so, he had 1-1 1/2 inch minnows, I tried the Bobby garlan itty bitty jig in electric chicken color, man it’s hard to keep the bream from tearing up the jig before you can even catch a crappie on it. To start off with, I caught 10-12 smaller crappie before he even got a bite, then he caught one then I caught about 8 more before we left treetops and started fishing deeper water, we had maybe 20 crappie and 4 catfish, fun day, it was strange to me that a crappie would rather eat a piece of plastic than a smaller 1 1/2 inch minnow.
How in the world do you keep the jig up on the hook, with such a itty bitty jig, I tried super glue but it wouldn’t do very good, not enough there to stick to.

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Originally Posted by Danny Lang

Me and my dad fished today from daylight to 11 am or so, he had 1-1 1/2 inch minnows, I tried the Bobby garlan itty bitty jig in electric chicken color, man it’s hard to keep the bream from tearing up the jig before you can even catch a crappie on it. To start off with, I caught 10-12 smaller crappie before he even got a bite, then he caught one then I caught about 8 more before we left treetops and started fishing deeper water, we had maybe 20 crappie and 4 catfish, fun day, it was strange to me that a crappie would rather eat a piece of plastic than a smaller 1 1/2 inch minnow.
How in the world do you keep the jig up on the hook, with such a itty bitty jig, I tried super glue but it wouldn’t do very good, not enough there to stick to.

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It happens more often than youd think. Of the 10 tournies I've fished in the last year, I've weighed about half a dozen fish caught on minnows, and probably caught 20 out of the last 1500-2000ish I've caught, on minnows. I've watched them nose up to them on Livescope and the minnow would wiggle trying to get away, and spook the fish off, or the fish would back off and lose interest.

I'm not sure why it happens but it does.

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Originally Posted by Danny Lang

Me and my dad fished today from daylight to 11 am or so, he had 1-1 1/2 inch minnows, I tried the Bobby garlan itty bitty jig in electric chicken color, man it’s hard to keep the bream from tearing up the jig before you can even catch a crappie on it. To start off with, I caught 10-12 smaller crappie before he even got a bite, then he caught one then I caught about 8 more before we left treetops and started fishing deeper water, we had maybe 20 crappie and 4 catfish, fun day, it was strange to me that a crappie would rather eat a piece of plastic than a smaller 1 1/2 inch minnow.
How in the world do you keep the jig up on the hook, with such a itty bitty jig, I tried super glue but it wouldn’t do very good, not enough there to stick to.

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Take dental floss and wrap it up the shank of the hook between the bend and the barb. Super glue it in place. Then apply super glue to the floss and put the BG body on. The body will then stay up and you can catch quite a few fish on it before it gets torn up. (The floss grabs the hook and the plastic grabs the floss)

Hope that helps!
Chris

Look up Richard Gene on you tube. He has a video showing how to tie a loop knot and the floss trick.

How To Tie A Loop Knot For Fishing - Plus A Crappie Jig Secret ! - YouTube

Thanks fellows I’ll have to give that a try.

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Originally Posted by NCkenner

Take dental floss and wrap it up the shank of the hook between the bend and the barb. Super glue it in place. Then apply super glue to the floss and put the BG body on. The body will then stay up and you can catch quite a few fish on it before it gets torn up. (The floss grabs the hook and the plastic grabs the floss)

Hope that helps!
Chris

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sounds more like the "SUPER GLUE" grabs the hook and the floss. :dono

I like a jig over a minnow 99.9% of the time , less to deal with and typically wears out the fish better , as far as the itty bitty baits go ,they are just to soft for me to deal with , but they will ketch fish for sure .

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Originally Posted by Ketchn

I like a jig over a minnow 99.9% of the time , less to deal with and typically wears out the fish better , as far as the itty bitty baits go ,they are just to soft for me to deal with , but they will ketch fish for sure .

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i agree with you ketchn, those itty bittys are very soft, we were not catchin many so we had to adapt to what we could do to ketchn us a few.

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Originally Posted by Ketchn

I like a jig over a minnow 99.9% of the time , less to deal with and typically wears out the fish better , as far as the itty bitty baits go ,they are just to soft for me to deal with , but they will ketch fish for sure .

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I'm just the opposite. I prefer the smaller jigs. My favorite jig size is 1/64th oz when I'm jigging. I consider 1/16th to be a large jig. Only time I use larger is due to wind conditions. However I do place split shots around 6" above the jig to get it to fall faster.

I will go to 1/8th oz when I casting without a float. If I am use a sliding float I still like the smaller jigs with split shots on the line.

Haven't said that, Ketchn is a much better ketcher than I am. So you are probable better off following his advice instead of mine. :Rofl

As others have said, the dental floss trick works well


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com

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Originally Posted by Danny Lang

Me and my dad fished today from daylight to 11 am or so, he had 1-1 1/2 inch minnows, I tried the Bobby garlan itty bitty jig in electric chicken color, man it’s hard to keep the bream from tearing up the jig before you can even catch a crappie on it. To start off with, I caught 10-12 smaller crappie before he even got a bite, then he caught one then I caught about 8 more before we left treetops and started fishing deeper water, we had maybe 20 crappie and 4 catfish, fun day, it was strange to me that a crappie would rather eat a piece of plastic than a smaller 1 1/2 inch minnow.
How in the world do you keep the jig up on the hook, with such a itty bitty jig, I tried super glue but it wouldn’t do very good, not enough there to stick to.

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Try wrapping dental floss to the shank just below the head, and apply super glue to the floss. Richard Gene old trick!

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Originally Posted by ezgoing

I'm just the opposite. I prefer the smaller jigs. My favorite jig size is 1/64th oz when I'm jigging. I consider 1/16th to be a large jig. Only time I use larger is due to wind conditions. However I do place split shots around 6" above the jig to get it to fall faster.

I will go to 1/8th oz when I casting without a float. If I am use a sliding float I still like the smaller jigs with split shots on the line.

Haven't said that, Ketchn is a much better ketcher than I am. So you are probable better off following his advice instead of mine. :Rofl

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:Rofl that all depends on the day my friend , some days your mentors will flat wear them down while you are in the audience , bet you seen that before , just saying :popcorn

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Originally Posted by Danny Lang

Me and my dad fished today from daylight to 11 am or so, he had 1-1 1/2 inch minnows, I tried the Bobby garlan itty bitty jig in electric chicken color, man it’s hard to keep the bream from tearing up the jig before you can even catch a crappie on it. To start off with, I caught 10-12 smaller crappie before he even got a bite, then he caught one then I caught about 8 more before we left treetops and started fishing deeper water, we had maybe 20 crappie and 4 catfish, fun day, it was strange to me that a crappie would rather eat a piece of plastic than a smaller 1 1/2 inch minnow.
How in the world do you keep the jig up on the hook, with such a itty bitty jig, I tried super glue but it wouldn’t do very good, not enough there to stick to.

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This weekend after reading this post and not much action on
1 1/2 BG’s or live minnows I broke out the itty bitty’s.
First 4 drops caught fish off the brush pile using live scope and more throughout the trip.
Thanks for the info Danny!


Sent from my iPad using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

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Originally Posted by Blackjeepjk

This weekend after reading this post and not much action on
1 1/2 BG’s or live minnows I broke out the itty bitty’s.
First 4 drops caught fish off the brush pile using live scope and more throughout the trip.
Thanks for the info


Sent from my iPad using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

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yes sir, ain’t this the best crappie fishing forum around. Good info here, glad you had a good trip.

I use Itty Bitty minnows and slab slayers a lot. I use jig tying thread, 210 denier, to create a bump a little away from the head and soak it with Sally hansons hard as nails to hold the plastic in place. Works very well for me. The lump is maybe 1/4” long and about three times thicker than the shank of the hook total. If you’re going to use super glue you have to do it way ahead of time so the glue can totally dry before you use it. I found that if the plastic is oily feeling that the glue doesn’t stick as well.

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Originally Posted by skeetbum

I use Itty Bitty minnows and slab slayers a lot. I use jig tying thread, 210 denier, to create a bump a little away from the head and soak it with Sally hansons hard as nails to hold the plastic in place. Works very well for me. The lump is maybe 1/4” long and about three times thicker than the shank of the hook total. If you’re going to use super glue you have to do it way ahead of time so the glue can totally dry before you use it. I found that if the plastic is oily feeling that the glue doesn’t stick as well.

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skeet that sounds a lot easier to just get my bobbin out and wrap a few jigs up quick and glue them, instead of wrapping them with dental floss, I guess it’s easy either way. Just glueing them before the trip, I don’t like because the fish might not like that color, then you have to make changes, so I usually glue as I go.

Danny, another thought came to mind. I use my plastics to test the fish and see what they’re after that day, then switch to a hand tie that mimics the most common plastics that I use. Those don’t tear up but they sometimes sink a bit faster so pay attention that you don’t donate too many. A couple of pieces of flash in the hand tie sometimes gives a little advantage that the plastics don’t have.

I tried the bobbin tie today and glued up a few itty bittys to use tomorrow, I’ll see what that does, first one I tried had a barb on it, that doesn’t work to well, bad placement of hook the first stick and retried it to no prevail. Itty bitty tore all up, so cut barbs off then tied thread on it and super glue it up seemed to work well. Skeet I agree with you on finding the color the fish want and use a hand tied, those hand tied will catch bunches of crappie before anything tears up. I don’t think I ever had one to tear up, I usually loose it first.