A Flash of Sunlit Minnows

The minnow family — Cyprinidae — is the largest freshwater fish family in the world. There are about 50 genera and over 300 species of minnows in the United States, yet nearly all the people I've ever discussed minnows with couldn't even tell me what a minnow was.

I mean, I definitely know what a minnow is. My dad's the bait guy.

My dad, Kerry Hoody, has been wholesaling live bait nearly all of his life. After working for a few friends' business during his young adulthood, he decided to open up his own live bait business, Huron Live Bait, in Imlay City, Michigan, where he sells perch bait, crick bait, and walleye bait. He catches most of his bait during the summer in Port Huron, Michigan under the Blue Water Bridge in the waters of Lake Huron. During the fall and winter, Kerry has to search other bodies of water, like brooks or channels or cricks, to find where the minnows have traveled. There are a few live bait catchers/dealers in the thumb of Michigan near Kerry, and they all compete to find, catch, and sell the minnows. Even if my dad knows where he's able to catch minnows, there could be another bait guy down there already scooping them up. It's an extremely competitive business. If my dad's not there to grab them at the right time at the right place, somebody else has already got the minnows in the tank of their truck and driving them home.

Most people don't understand how much hard work is put into catching these minnows. An average catching day starts around 2 a.m. for Kerry and doesn't really have a specified clock-out time. He has to figure out when and where the minnows are running, and if they're not there, he's got to find them or try all over again the next morning. It's very hit-or-miss, minnows are very spontaneous and it's hard to figure out their movement patterns.

To get this shot of the minnows, I knew I had to be still and quick. Minnows are fast and they sure don't stick to one spot for very long. I wanted to capture a still moment of them, up close and personal, with as much detail I could possibly get.

This morning my dad was loading up the bait truck to make a delivery and I knew this was my moment to snag these photos. I headed out to the minnow shed with my camera. I needed to get up on the tank to get my ideal shot right straight above the minnows. I balanced as I crouched down to get an even closer shot. Walking the narrow tops of the tanks was nothing new to me, I've spent my whole life out here helping my dad.

I was shooting in natural light with my Nikon D5600 at 1/160 sec at f/1.8 with an ISO of 5000 on an 85 mm lens. I've tried shooting the minnows close-up before but couldn't get the picture I imagined in my head; the minnows were too fast and jumpy and I just couldn't get a solid clear and focused photo. This time, however, I got exactly what I was trying for. It was a challenge, but I was ready to step up and face it head-on.

After gathering my shots, I headed inside to edit. I narrowed down my selection to the sharpest, cleanest photos and began editing in Adobe Lightroom to make the photos look just like the scene did in real life through the naked eye. I brightened, toned, got the colors right — anything to recreate the live moment in time. This brought me to around 10 of my favorite edits, and slowly I narrowed it down to my favorite photo that best represented the minnows, which is the big photo at the top of this story. I'm very glad I accepted this challenge and got the photo I've been wanting to create for a long time now. Through my photos, I've been happily telling the world my dad's story as the bait guy through these lively, adventurous, photogenic minnows.