No minnows any one else?

Speaking ice fishing specifically, do you guys not fish live bait on a deadstick when Ice Fishing? These days I probably fish much less than a lot of you on this forum, but I always like having the live option going on a deadstick when I’m jigging spoons, etc. We fished some big weather changes on our LOTW trip this year where spoons or jiggin’ raps were going good on day 1 and by day 2 it was all deadsticks and rattles.

In the summer I’m mostly artificial with the exception of slip-bobber fishing off the dock or pontoon – but that’s more of a social thing. And the Rock Bass usually ruin that party!

Steve Root wrote:

Over the years my daughter Sharon and her a late husband Billy would hop in the boat with me for an annual spring <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>panfish trip. They would bring along waxies, crawlers, minnows, and make a heck of a mess in my boat. I’d be throwing small flies with a light weight fly rod. And I was fishing circles around those two. Eventually Sharon was using one of my flies under a bobber with her spinning rod just like it was live bait. Billy took a little more convincing, but eventually we stopped using live bait altogether. And we caught a lot of fish.

SR

@Sharon is this true or is Steve telling fish stories? Did he really fish circles around you?

Oh you bet he did! That’s why I said goodbye to live bait and started using his flies – the fish just love them!