Is the Silver Minnow Just Another Forgotten Old Lure?

Anyone who tried to convince my kayaking friend, Charlie Bruggemann (right), of that back in 2015 didn't get very far. Why? Because, as the now fully retired angler explained to me back then, that bait from 1920 still was one of the most productive lures in Charlie's arsenal at the time.

And as I've learned through some online research since, the now 104-year-old Johnson Silver Minnow continues to be a productive favorite among many anglers yet today.

One of those gents is Dale W. Verts from Florence, Missouri. In his own words, "It's the MOST versatile thick-cover bait that there is for me. It comes through the muck better than a frog and is way more effective than a frog because you just can do so much more with it (but I still LOVE my frogs). It's also maybe the BEST follow-up bait that there is behind a frog...better than a worm."

Continued Verts, "Folks, this thing is the real deal, and I am truly amazed that I don't see more mention of it on the Internet. Even more so, I don't see it in pro fishin' discussions when the bite is in the vegetation. It's just weird to me, but then again, there are several baits and techniques that I'm not seeing. Maybe I'm just gettin' too old.

"If you want to give this thing a shot, here's how it works. First of all, for some reason, all I've ever thrown is the 1/4-ounce model. I don't know why, except that it works. And the only colors I've ever used are chrome and black chrome. There are more colors and sizes available, of course."

Verts went on to explain that the Silver Minnow works best with a trailer. "The drag of something hanging off the back of the spoon gives it a tantalizing and 'woopsy' wiggle. The type of trailer you use, and sometimes the way you use it, can change the action from a tighter shimmy to a wide wobble. Those tricks are a secret, though, that I'm gonna keep to myself. Y'all can have fun figuring it out for yourselves."

This "show me state" veteran uses a few fairly basic trailers. First is a hard-to-beat rubber or an old vinyl skirt. He suggests looking at the old Arbogast Hula Popper to get an idea of the style skirt he's talking about. Put it on longways, not backwards or inside out.

Second, he advises using a plastic pork-type frog chunk or something like a Zoom Swimmin' Chunk. "Those last good," he said. "I do, however, keep them fairly short, unless the bass are just eatin' 'em up. I also use old Uncle Josh Pork Rinds, too.

"By changing colors (shades) and styles of trailers, you easily can trade-up your presentations to fine tune. I will say 80 percent of the time, I throw a white or pearl-colored trailer. The rest of the time, it's gonna be black."

Verts noted that the Silver Minnow was made with heavy tackle in mind. "Braid is perfect for fishin' it in the thick stuff," he said. "I throw it on 20-to-25-pound mono if I'm using regular line, but most days, I'm chunkin' it on 65-pound braid.

"Of course, I also use a rod to match...at the moment, a Dobyns 734 Fury. I also sometimes use a 735, but the 734 casts better with the smaller 1/4-ounce bait.

"These spoons, at least my older ones," he continued, "that I've had since 1993, come with very dull hooks, even for braid. A few long passes with a file will put you in the game, though."

Continued Verts, "I keep my casts short in the heavy stuff, even though this little bugger will fly if you want to launch it. It'll go so far that you may need to file a flight plan. But I keep my casts to under 30 or 40 feet most of the time. This is a big-bass bait for a thick-cover presentation. I don't give the bass any more than I have to, generally speaking."

At this point, Verts described an incident in which he just had caught a 6 and one-half-pound bass, and less than five minutes later, made a 60-foot cast up past a small pod of pads that still were green but surrounded by dead pads and stems. He only had retrieved his Silver Minnow about 5 feet when the bait was inhaled by one toad of a bass.

"I commenced to crankin', and the bass turned sideways enough to give me a good look. It was in something less than 2 feet of water, and it got my heart to pumpin'. But being it still was 50 or so feet away, and there were all these dead pads to come through, she got me into one of them. The hook grabbed hold of the stem, and the battle was over. The video of what happened hurts too bad for me to watch it. I just know the bass would have weighed more than 9 pounds.

"I fish the Silver Minnow with a slow to medium retrieve most of the time. When the fish are bitin' good, a steady retrieve does the job. However, it's sometimes better to run the bait into stuff, then kill it, and start retrieving again. Most of the bass I catch are larger ones that respond to a change in the 'woodsy' cadence of the lure.

"Anyway, use a trailer of your choice (they all will work), sharpen the hook, and make sure your tackle is heavy enough to handle heavy cover. Know, however, that the Silver Minnow also works well in open water." There further are those who say the bait works well in stump fields and areas with standing timber, too.