Minnows: What They Are and the Best Bait Minnows

A fathead minnow in a tank over gravel: an olive-gold body, a dark stripe down the side, a dark-banded back fin and small bumps on the blunt head — Photo: Dhester88, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

A minnow is a small freshwater fish of the minnow family, and North America has over 290 kinds of them. Shiners, chubs, daces and fatheads are all minnows, and most stay under 6 inches. At the bait shop, “minnows” means the small live fish sold by the dozen, most often fathead minnows or golden shiners. They’re the bait for crappie, walleye, perch and bass.

Under Minnesota law, a leech is a minnow. So is a sucker up to 12 inches long, and a bullhead up to 7.

What is a minnow?

It’s any fish of the minnow family. Over 290 kinds live in North America, and Virginia alone has 67. Most are small schooling fish, under 6 inches, with names that end in shiner, chub or dace.

Small isn’t the rule, though. Carp and goldfish are minnows too. The biggest native one, the Colorado pikeminnow, grows up to 6 feet and 100 pounds. It’s endangered.

What they share is a set of teeth in the throat. Minnows use them to grind weeds, clams and insects they dig out of the mud.

A small fathead minnow lying in a wet open palm, olive on the back with a gold side and a dark stripe toward the tail

A fathead minnow, one of the two minnows bait shops sell most, at about the size you’ll buy. Photo: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (CC BY-SA 2.0).

For fishing, the word is looser. Minnesota’s law counts suckers up to 12 inches as minnows, and on the Gulf Coast a “mud minnow” is a killifish. The table below sorts out which is which.

Which fish get called minnows?

Plenty of fish wear the name without being in the family. It doesn’t matter much on the water. It matters when you read your state’s bait rules, because the law uses its own definition.

Called a minnow	Is it one?	Where you’ll meet it
Fathead minnow, shiners, chubs, daces	Yes, the minnow family	Bait shops, creeks and ponds everywhere
Carp and goldfish	Yes, the same family	Many states ban carp as bait. Some ban selling goldfish as bait
Sucker “minnows”	No, the sucker family	Sold as big live bait for pike and musky
Mud minnow, bull minnow	No, it’s a killifish, another family	Raised on the Gulf Coast as a bait for part-salt water
Mudminnow	No, its own family	Counted as a minnow in Minnesota law

Minnesota writes a wide list. In its fishing law, “minnows” means the minnow family except carp and goldfish. It also means mudminnows, suckers up to 12 inches, bullheads, ciscoes and a few others up to 7 inches, leeches, tadpole madtoms and stonecats. Your state’s list can be wider or narrower, so read it before you net or buy.

How big do minnows get?

Most minnows stay under 6 inches, and the common bait kinds run 2 to 3. A few grow far bigger. Here’s the spread, from the bait tank to the giants.

Minnow	Usual adult size	Biggest
Bluntnose minnow	About 2 1/2 in (6.5 cm)	About 4 in (11 cm)
Emerald shiner	About 2 1/2 in (6 cm)	3 1/2–5 in (9–13 cm)
Fathead minnow	1 1/2–3 in (4–8 cm)	3 in in Missouri, 4 in in Ohio (8–10 cm)
Common shiner	3–5 in (8–13 cm)	About 7 in (18 cm)
Golden shiner	3–6 in (8–15 cm)	About 12 in (30 cm)
Fallfish	Largest native minnow in Virginia	15 in (38 cm)
Colorado pikeminnow	The giant of the family	6 ft (1.8 m), 100 lb (45 kg)

They grow fast and die young. A common shiner grows about 2 to 4 inches in its first year. Golden shiners start to mature by their first spring, and fatheads usually live only a few years.

Where do minnows live?

Almost anywhere there’s fresh water. Fatheads range from Canada to northern Mexico, in slow streams, ponds, lakes and wetlands. In Missouri they’re thickest in the pools of small prairie creeks, because they handle heat, muddy water and low oxygen. Golden shiners are native to, or have been stocked in, much of the lower 48.

Most minnows travel in schools. Emerald shiners take the cold well, which is one reason they’re a winter bait.

Which minnows are sold as bait?

Two cover almost every bait tank: the fathead minnow and the golden shiner. With goldfish, they make up over 90 percent of farm-raised bait and feeder fish sold in the US. Most of those farms are in Arkansas. About half of all baitfish sold are caught wild, which is where the regional ones come in.

Bait	Size	How it holds up	Use it for
Fathead minnow	About 2–3 in (5–8 cm)	Very well. Handles heat, muddy water and low oxygen	Crappie, walleye, perch, on a jig or under a bobber
Golden shiner	Usually 3–6 in (8–15 cm)	Not very hardy. Wants aerated water and room	Largemouth bass, crappie
Emerald shiner	Small and silver, green on the back	Often short. Lake Erie shops run out in summer and fall	Yellow perch on Lake Erie, also crappie
Redtail or black chub	Redtails 3–4 in in spring, 5–6 in by fall (8–15 cm)	Black chubs are the tougher of the two. Redtails are scarce early	Walleye
White sucker	Up to 8 in for pike, 10–14 in for musky (20–36 cm)	Rules vary. Minnesota counts suckers up to 12 in as minnows	Northern pike and musky
Goldfish	Sold small, as food for pet fish	Very hardy, even in low oxygen	Some states ban selling it as bait. Check first

If you only buy one, buy fatheads. They last, and they’re slow swimmers, which is exactly why fish catch them. Wisconsin’s DNR calls small fatheads “crappie minnows” and says they’re the most popular crappie bait. Step up to shiners when you want more flash, or a bigger bait for bass.

Lake Erie shows how fast this can change. Emerald shiners were the go-to perch bait there. By 2020 the shops were often out of them, and golden shiners had become the main live bait sold on the lake.

What size minnow should you use?

Match the minnow to the fish you’re after. Here’s what the agencies and guides say, fish by fish.

A chart of bait minnow length by target fish: crappie through the ice 1 to 1 1/2 inches, crappie in summer 2 1/2 to 3, walleye in spring on fatheads 2 to 3, walleye in fall on redtail chubs 5 to 6, largemouth on shiners 5 to 8, northern pike on suckers and chubs up to 8, musky on suckers 10 to 14

Drawing: fishing.info, from Wisconsin DNR, Northland Tackle, Crappie Now and Florida Sportsman.

Crappie: small. A 1 to 1 1/2 inch minnow through the ice and at ice-out, and 2 1/2 to 3 inches in summer.
Walleye: 2 to 3 inch fatheads in spring, up to 5 or 6 inch chubs by fall. Don’t go big too early. “Many people oversize minnows in spring thinking small minnows won’t catch big fish. Untrue,” writes Greg Bohn of Northland Tackle.
Largemouth bass: a 5 to 8 inch golden shiner on most days. It keeps the small bass off and still gets the big ones, Florida Sportsman says.
Northern pike: a sucker or chub up to 8 inches, under a sturdy bobber, Wisconsin says.
Musky: a sucker of 10 to 14 inches.

Size the hook to the minnow, not to the fish. Bohn uses a #6 hook for medium to large fatheads, and a #2 or #4 for chubs. The hook size chart shows what those numbers look like.

When are minnows the best bait?

In cold water. For walleye, minnows are the pick from opening day, at 40 to 50 °F (4–10 °C), until the water reaches 60 to 64 °F (16–18 °C), Bohn says. Then leeches and nightcrawlers take over for summer, and minnows come back in fall once the water cools to about 60 °F. Iowa’s DNR says much the same: minnows from late fall to early spring, crawlers and leeches in between.

That makes minnows the ice-fishing bait too. Wisconsin’s ice advice for walleye is tip-ups, jigs and medium-sized minnows. A tip-up is a flag on a spool set over the hole, and it lets a fish run with a live minnow.

Water temperature	Walleye bait to start with
40–50 °F (4–10 °C), opening day	Small fatheads
Up to 60–64 °F (16–18 °C)	Minnows still lead
Summer, about May to October	Leeches. Nightcrawlers on deep structure and after dark, in 65–80 °F (18–27 °C) water
Fall, back to about 60 °F (16 °C)	Minnows again. Redtails have grown to 5–6 in by now

Carry two kinds of bait anyway. The best one can change as the water warms through the day. The walleye water temperature page has the rest of the numbers.

How do you hook a minnow?

Hook it so it stays alive and keeps swimming. There are two main spots, through the lips or through the back, and Missouri’s advice is to pick whichever keeps the minnow lively. Here’s when to use each.

How you’re fishing	Where the hook goes	Who says so
A jig, or a 3-way rig you troll	Through both lips	Iowa’s DNR, for walleye
Under a slip bobber	Just below the back fin	Iowa’s DNR
Under a bobber or on the bottom	Through the lips or behind the back fin	Missouri. Either way works, so pick the one that keeps it alive
Bohn’s walleye rigs	Between the back fin and the tail, closer to the tail	Greg Bohn. He skips the lips, because the hook sometimes turns and sticks in the minnow’s head

A big golden shiner for bass gets hooked by the job: through the lip to drift it, in the back to steer it into cover.

How do you keep minnows alive?

Keep them cold and give them air. Most minnows die from warm water and too little oxygen. An insulated bait bucket and a small battery aerator, a pump that bubbles air into the water, solve most of it.

Shade and a lid. Sun heats a bucket fast.
Room. A bigger container gives them more room to breathe.
A little ice on warm days. It keeps the water cool.
Careful with tap water. Fill up at the bait shop. If you use treated tap water, add a fish water conditioner from a pet store first.

Fatheads forgive mistakes. Golden shiners don’t, so plan on aerated water and a roomy bucket if you buy shiners. If the bait has to last into a second day, the fathead minnow is the one to buy.

What do minnows eat?

Mostly algae, tiny water animals and insects. Adult minnows eat both plants and animals. Golden shiners live on zooplankton, the tiny animals that drift in open water, plus insects and algae. Fatheads feed on the bottom, so they eat small animals and plant bits mixed with mud.

Minnow	What it eats
Golden shiner	Zooplankton, insects and algae. Young ones eat tiny zooplankton and algae
Fathead minnow	Small animals and plants mixed with mud, picked off the bottom, plus zooplankton
Goldfish	Insect larvae, small invertebrates, algae and water plants. It uproots plants as it feeds
Minnows in general	Insects and algae. The throat teeth grind weeds, small clams and insects from the mud

Will minnows eat fish food? Yes. Bait farms raise golden shiners on prepared fish feed, and they take it readily.

What eats minnows is the better question for an angler. Bait minnows are sold to catch crappie, largemouth bass, walleye and many other fish, and in the wild minnows are what those fish grow on. Walleye feed mainly on minnows, Wisconsin’s DNR says.

How do you catch your own minnows?

Use a minnow trap or a seine, a net you sweep toward the bank. Bait the trap with bread, salted crackers or dry dog food, Outdoor Life says. Set it in shallow water and leave it overnight.

Read your state’s rules first. Some states limit the trap and the net. Michigan allows a minnow trap up to 24 inches long, with a funnel opening no larger than 1 1/2 inches, and it has to carry your name and address. Wild minnows also come mixed, several kinds in one haul. Sort them before you use them, and let go anything you can’t name.

Can you use minnows anywhere?

No. Minnow rules are strict, because a bucket of minnows can carry fish diseases, invaders and the wrong species into a new lake. The bait hub lays out seven states side by side. Here’s the short version.

The rule	What it means	One state that has it
Buy where you fish	Some states don’t let you bring live bait in	Minnesota: “It is illegal to bring live minnows and leeches into Minnesota from out of state”
Check the list	Some states allow only certain baitfish. Many ban carp, and some ban selling goldfish as bait	New York: only the 11 kinds on its Green List can be bought and used, golden shiners and fatheads among them
Keep the receipt	Some states want proof your bait is certified, meaning tested for disease	New York: no receipt, or one older than 10 days, and the bait counts as uncertified
Don’t move wild minnows	Bait you catch often has to stay on that water	Michigan: minnows you take “may only be used in the waters where they are collected”
Never dump them	Leftovers go in the trash, never in the lake	Minnesota: “It is illegal to release bait into Minnesota waters”

The rudd shows why. It’s a European minnow that looks like a golden shiner, and it was sold as bait in the US for about a decade. Then it was found breeding with golden shiners, and it was banned as bait.

Live or dead minnows?

Live first, because a minnow that kicks draws the strike. A half-dead shiner might interest a catfish, one Florida captain writes, but not the bass you’re dreaming of. Swap a bait when it stops swimming.

Dead minnows still catch fish, though, and sometimes they’re the better choice:

Perch: size matters more than life. The best perch anglers Ross Robertson knows carry game shears to cut minnows in half at times.
Walleye under the ice: jig near the bottom with a lure tipped with a minnow or just a minnow head. That’s Minnesota’s advice.

So a minnow that dies in the bucket isn’t wasted. Keep it cold and use it to tip a jig.

Where do you buy minnows?

At a bait shop near the water. They sell minnows by the dozen or by the scoop, and they know which size is working this week. Call first, especially before a holiday weekend. Prices move with supply. On Lake Erie in 2020, a scoop of emerald shiners ran “upwards of $4, often more than $5,” up from about $2 a few years earlier.

Buy from a licensed bait dealer. Farm-raised bait comes from a few known kinds of fish. Wild-caught bait can come with other fish mixed in, and those have to be sorted out before they travel. That’s why some states want proof of where your bait came from.

Can you eat minnows?

You can. Minnows are mostly used for bait, but people eat them too. They aren’t prized as food in the US, because minnows carry fine bones in the meat, the same ones that keep carp off most tables. If you keep minnows to eat, check your state’s fish advisory for that water first.

Can you keep minnows as pets?

Yes. Many minnows are hardy, attractive and lively in a home aquarium, Virginia Tech says. The goldfish is a minnow, after all. Bait farms also raise an orange fathead called the “rosy red.”

Don’t let a pet minnow go in a lake or creek, though. Virginia Tech blames pet owners for the goldfish that keep turning up in wild water, where they compete with native fish.

For most people, a minnow’s job is on the hook. The bait hub shows what else to use when the minnows run out, and the crappie fishing guide is the best place to put a bucket of fatheads to work.

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