How do you hook your minnows

[RCC]

I have seen the inhaling bites on video and they are interesting to see. I just wonder how a crappie flares his gills and sucks in a crank bait as it goes by at 1.5-2.5 mph. I suppose he creates enough suction to slow down a 1500+lb boat. Same deal with power trolling jigs. Reckon that fish is smart enough to recognize that the one is a live minnow and the other is a bandit 300 and eats them a different way? Or do you suppose that the bite at the artificial is just purely a reaction bite? If so, does the crappie never have a reaction bite on live bait? So many questions and so little time. Does anyone have a video of a crappie eating a crank bait. This I would like to see.

Oh by the way to keep this "on topic", I hook my crank baits right through the lips.

[mo_down7]

Yup... I hook em through the eyes too! Has always worked for me so why fix what ain't broken?

Everyone has their preferred method but I guess you just find what works for you and go with it!

My buddy hooks em through the lips and lights em up too!

["G"]

hook them thru the eyeballs

[MJohnson]

I may be over thinking it, but it seems like my minnows die pretty fast when I hook them bottom up through the front/lips whatever you want to call it, even when I am careful not to put the hook through their brain. They seem to last longer hooked sideways in one nostril and out the other, granted they don't stay on the hook as well, or in the back behind the dorsal, high enough not to hit any vitals. The theory I have decided on is when you hook upward through the mouth, the hook sometimes holds the mouth closed and they can't move water through their gills and can't breathe, so they die quicker.

Again, maybe it's total bunk but it makes sense in my mind. I've kept a ton of minnows on the hook for quite a while that I could put back in the bucket and use again later or throw in the water and they'd swim away, but that almost never happens when "lip" hooked.

Maybe I should be more worried about why I can have a minnow on my hook so long and not have it taken off by a fish! Ha! I have tried both ways to try to see a difference in missed strikes, and I can't tell any. I always prescribed to the fish eating prey head first theory and hooked them in the front, but minnows being soft rayed, it does make sense that it wouldn't matter.

[crappiehoarder]

I used to always hook my minners thru the back just behind the dorsal fin until one day I went fishing with my cousin and he was hooking them through the eyes. He was catching probably 4 to my one,so from then on,I hook them through the eyes.

[crappiecrazy]

Hook um thru the eyes so they don't see what is fixin to happen to them!

[Jerrydabassman]

On the back, near dorsal fin. Seems to stay fresher longer than with a mouth set. But that's just me. Haven't crappie fished since the Jurassic Period..lol

[BoarBuster]

My dad always hooked his thru the lips. I felt that when I did that they died to quick. When I do use minnows I prefer to tail hook them.

[badaxed]

I have inserted book point into mouth, then up through top of nostrils to allow minnow to have more water flowing through gills. It seems to make them last a little longer. Especially in warm water.

[Firebug2006]

Of all these methods discussed, which one is best for keeping a minnow on if you're casting?