Wipers

Catching a fair amount of wipers this size on minnows.

Minnows will catch anything, and it feels like cheating sometimes. I was getting a little action on nightcrawlers. I did catch a small largemouth bass and a wiper on a small crankbait once the minnows were gone.

Using ultra light rods and reels. Zebco micro 33 on a B&M 4'10" one piece and a Shakespeare Durango spincast on an older Shakespeare micro rod 5'6"

Fishing on the bottom, they seemed to like a drop shot rig the best. No bobber/float. I thought it was kinda interesting they liked the drop shot better than a more "standard" rig with a hook on the end and weight about 10"-12" up the line from the hook.

Fun to catch, pretty good fighters, especially on such light tackle.

Question: Is it better to cut your line and leave the hook in the fish if it swallows it too far? Or better to try and get it out with pliers and damage the fish pretty badly in the process?

I had a couple that ate the hook pretty good and the hook was in there deep. Quite difficult to get the hook out without messing the fish up pretty severely. Trying to be as careful as possible, but sometimes I'm not able to remove the hook without removing some guts.

When the hook is deep and after removing it the fish are slow to swim away. A couple didn't make it…