Myself and two other fellas went to a lake up by Alexandria (MN) on Saturday looking for Walleyes. The spot we wanted to fish had several boats on it, but for Walleye fishing (unlike Bass) it's not unusual to join in a flotilla, everyone just hovering around an area. There were about 10 other boats working this area and we joined in. Literally all of them were catching fish, and we weren't getting a bite. It went on like that for quite a while until we just asked, "What the heck are you guys using? We're not getting bit."
The answer was Shiner minnows. We were using fathead minnows. The guys that were catching were using Shiners.
So late morning after basically being humiliated (all the fishermen could see that we were the only ones not catching) we decided to send one buddy in my truck to fetch Shiners while the other buddy and I stayed in my boat looking for Crappies.
We pulled into a little bay, and before my buddy got back with the Shiners, we had two limits of Crappies. We pulled back in so the fella that got the Shiners could get his limit of Crappies, and then we went back for the Walleyes.
Before the day ended we had three limits of Crappie and three limits of Walleye. A dang good day of fishing that began not so great.