Why shiners

I read around and deal with the bait shop a lot and while buying bait Friday some guy was real mad about no shiners.this is normally the case through out winter all over.

I always try to stay away from them regardless. Just because they are harder to keep for a period of time. My fish catching percentage is rarely beat putting a big rainbow next to a shiner. And they get real expensive.
I can get a big scoop of rainbow chubs for way less then shiners and catch just as many walleyes off of them.

Just curious why every one always has to have them? And yes I do buy them time to time as well. I’m not hating on them

They die if you look at them wrong sometimes.

The high price of shiners over the years is mostly because there is ban on importing them from out of state. Lack of supply.

I’ll take a big rainbow any day over a shiner!

I like shiners when perch fishing.

I feel I catch more pike with shiners when walleye fishing ,too flashy

We call these shiners. Same kind of shines?

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Gino wrote:

I feel I catch more pike with shiners when walleye fishing ,too flashy

I get that same thing. Then it sucks I spent 20 bucks on walleye bait that pike ate all up and the other half died.

I will admit that there is a very few times I’ve seen the shiner out produce my rainbows and big chubs. But not very often. I always just say it’s the luck of the spot

Bass will hit shiners on tip-ups far more than anything else in my experiences on Pool 4. We caught probably a dozen nice bass last weekend running tip-ups with my nephew in a few hours with some pike sprinkled in. All bass came on shiners. Pike didn’t seem to have a preference between shiners, suckers, and chubs.

What is a big scoop of rainbows? We don’t have these available on pool 5 on the river. We have walleye minnows, crappie minnows and “shiners” like in my picture. The shiners are around $8/dz.

These work for fishing bass and northern on the back waters of the Mississippi.

Rainbows is a slang name that is given to a fine scale dace.

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Doesnt seem to be the first shiner shortage in MN
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bemidjipioneer.com/sports/outdoors/874903-spottail-shiner-shortage-frustrates-anglers-bait-dealers%3Famp

River runs, those are what we get as big or large”river shiners”. We also get golden up here.( only 1 hr north of the cities) they get up to a buck a piece for the mediums and large. Their is also small size, of a fat head.

What Gino is holding is a picture of my preferred rainbow chub. And I can get a big scoop of them for 5 to 8 bucks. I do really well on walleye with them, also they are tough and last long when I keep them in 5 gallon buckets.
Then we also have the normal crappie minnows, fat heads and so on.
I just noticed every one here always wants to spend a small fortune on shiners.
From my experience they are so so and they die fast unless handled with extreme care. (Which is impossible) I could buy a dozen and have 4 dead by the time I get to the lake.
I quit buying them all together except every once and a great while

riverruns wrote:

What is a big scoop of rainbows? We don’t have these available on pool 5 on the river. We have <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye minnows, crappie minnows and “shiners” like in my picture.

What are your walleye minnows ?

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>riverruns wrote:</div>

What is a big scoop of rainbows? We don’t have these available on pool 5 on the river. We have <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye minnows, crappie minnows and “shiners” like in my picture.

What are your walleye minnows ?

Guessing fatheads?

On lotw, there are many times shiners outproduce all other minnows. There I prefer frozen over live.

Occasionally, I’ll buy large shiners to imitate small crappies as forage. Usually for pike but walleyes definitely eat them too. That was when they were more accessible. Now they always seem to be out.

The pike I cleaned this weekend had sunnies in them but as you know, suckers were working just fine.

Other than that, I’m with you, I don’t see what the big fuss is.

If after a big walleye, its a 6-inch sucker for me.

If a guy fishes couple times a week and needs live bait, they will skimp and buy whatever is cheaper as shiners are a bit more. For me, if I’m coming up for a couple days, bait is the cheap part of my trip. I may as well try all types and let the fish decide what they like. If the shiners die, I freeze them and I have bait on my fall LOW trips with one less stop to make.
Honestly I think these little bait shops should charge more as it is tough to make a living unless the demand is there.
Down in Lake city where I fish, there is now 1 lonely gas station that sells minnows. The little old lady that works there is always so nice and charges a couple bucks! I only need a scoop but pay her for 3 when I can.
I get your point about shiners being weak and rainbows being on steroids but $30 on bait once a month for me is nothing to complain about….and yes I want some shiners!

Gino wrote:

I’ll take a big rainbow any day over a shiner!

My thoughts exactly.

I buy Shiners because sometimes on the Big Pond that’s all they want.. If I’m going to be sitting in my skid house for 3 days, I want the best possibility to catch fish. I will say that I get 65-70% of my fish on shiners. This last weekend is prime example: Got some nice Goldies and a scoop of plump Fatheads. Had our 4 lines down, Friday night, it was all Fatheads. Shiner got hit once. 4 more for the Fatheads before the sun come up on Saturday. Now Saturday rolls around and had a slow mid day bite. But by Prime time (3-6pm) It was all Shiners and small suckers. Not one bite on my Fatheads the rest of the weekend.. I went thru 10 shiners Saturday evening/night. If I can get some big Golden Shiners, I’ll buy as many as they will let me. I see it as having a variety of baits = best ability to catch fish. Kinda like some of you guys that have 100’s of jigging raps, Rippin Raps, etc. I don’t jig much, I don’t own a Vexilar or any type of fish finder. Big minnows on the rattle reels work well for me.

Eyeguy, I get your point if your not a frequent buyer.
I’m more of a 3 to 4 sometimes 5 days a week guy. Bait can get expensive fast at that rate.

And biggill I do admit that on lake of the woods it’s all I’ve ever used is frozen shiners so I’ll agree there. Even though out of all the fish we caught the other day the only walleye pulled out in the random mid day was on a small shiner that bman had on. ( just a fluke) lol.

I wish I had to buy bait 3 to 5 times a week, But this dang job thing is really holding me back! I think next January, I’m taking the whole month off to live on a lake!

eyeguy507 wrote:

I wish I had to buy bait 3 to 5 times a week, But this dang job thing is really holding me back! I think next January, I’m taking the whole month off to live on a lake!

I’m lucky I typically start at 5 am and work until 2 to 5pm. I drive a work truck so when I get home my personal rig is always loaded. Grab the portable grill and the kid some snacks and fly.

Shiners (the bigger the better) make awesome sturgeon bait. Better then crawlers and just as good as shad.

I’ll go back to my dish now.

Shiners do work really well on Mille Lacs when the bite is terrible, be it during midday, cold front, high pressure, lots of traffic, etc. I think because they’re always on the verge of dying that they give off some sort of signals of vulnerability to predators.

I have been mostly using suckers and rainbows the last two years and doing very well on tip-ups, especially this year, but over the years, shiners have turned numerous would-be terrible trips to Mille Lacs into decent ones with a half-dozen fish. They gained a rep up there, and people buy them up when they go in their wheelhouses for the weekend, $30-50 at a time.

It’s a pretty good racket for these bait shop owners, which I’m perfectly okay with. They’re just middle-class small business owners that could use a break sometimes. Look at the Lundeens for example.

emerald shiners? way better than any other minnow
https://www.outdoornews.com/2017/05/25/annual-emerald-shiner-shortage-rears-ugly-head/ easy to catch/trap in creeks typically

I get what your saying when mille lacs gets slow.
But that’s when I notice the rainbows do very well. But that’s just my opinion. Half the time 30 to 50 in shiners is 45 minnows. Half dead when the weekend is over. That’s my main reason I shy away from them. I have buddies who will only put shiners down the hole. And seldomly has the rainbow been out fished

Depends on the body of water in my opinion. I can’t ever seem to catch a walleye on a shiner on Mille Lacs and sucker minnows crush for me every trip. However on my home lake the walleye won’t touch a sucker minnow and hammer shiners.

I have also had some success with rainbows. Although they can be tough to find if you’re looking to get any size.

Shiners are cheaper in wi ? In a case like that I’m only 10 minutes from the wi border. And if I feel like I’m not being molested then I’d start trying them more. I just hate the price here, then when I leave the bait shop 4 are dead.
Can I buy them in wi and bring them home. Is that against the import rule? Or is that only on a commercial rate

Can’t transport any bait across state lines. Not sure how it is done or worded for border waters.