Will it work?

If it’s alive. U bet.

I have had great luck using it for catfish. Dead ones.

Thanks, The bait shop in Wabigoon gets, $$$$ for minnows.

There are some rubber tails for jigs that are killer for Canadian walleyes. Not sure anyone needs live bait other than leeches maybe?

Osky

Saw a kid catch a walleye on a dead shrimp fishing for catfish.

I have used Berkley GULP shrimp for smallies....doubt walleye would be any different.

Why not just trap your own minnows? 20.00 trap and a handful of dog food or chips and your set.

^^^^^^^^^^^

This.

If ya gotta go live, stick 1/4 of a crawler on the hook along with the rubber tail.

Can you not do any good dragging plugs Wabi? We caught 14 yesterday trolling cranks. And other than the occasional bottom bouncing or popping a jig head with crawlers trolling is really the only way we catch them.

Ontario won't let us Yankees trap our own minnows. The lakes we fish are rock bottoms, plugs get lost.

Right now you shouldn't be dealing with much in the way of rocky bottoms. We always hit the inflow and outflow areas this time of year. In the lakes we fish.........that's 3-8 feet of water and sand/mud bottom.

I'm dealing with too many doctors until late June to go fishing.

Melanoma behind my right ear, a torn meniscus in my left knee, and I need cataract surgery on both eyes, other than that I'm in great shape.

How are you fishing your minnows, under a bobber? If it’s too rocky to drag plugs or pull bouncers id probably have to just pitch jigs and deal with losing some. If you’re fishing flats with a relatively consistent depth I suppose you could fish jigs under a slip cork set to keep them right above the rocks.

Interesting to me to hear how others work around conditions and obstacles in their area.

If it’s too rocky a bottom and maybe 6’ deep or better ( depending on water clarity ) be patient and park over top of them and jig vertically. You don’t have to let your bait down onto the bottom, just close. Lift up and down gently. Fish see upwards just fine, they will come and get it.
Vertical jigging like this it won’t make much difference what you tip the jig with.

Osky

I tried shrimp for catfish a couple times. It may have worked except the turtles would be on that shrimp almost immediately. I would end up catching a turtle as an unintended catch before a catfish could bite almost every time.

When we go up in August we fish a whole different program. THEN we're fishing the rocky bottoms.

3-way swivel with a bottom-bouncer sinker off one and a "Little John" type spinner and beads (3 or 4 foot leader) with a crawler or minnow on the other. Backtroll that in (generally) 12-25 feet over rocky bottoms.......wherever we find the fish.

Same issue I had with trying dead shrimp... turtles, and I hate catching turtles. Well, actually more that I hate getting them off the hook... especially the stupid softshells with that longazz neck. 🙄

I did get some catfish, but I got way more turtles than I have with any other bait.

You can still bring nightcrawlers across the border into Canada. In my experience, they work just about as good as leeches for walleye. I use about half a crawler on a hook and slip bobber rig.