minnows

This thread is for anyone that wants to chime in. The weather is heating up, as it does minnows get harder and harder to keep alive. What are some of your methods, containers and so on both at home and on the water?

I have a pond right here at the house, but no live water feeding it unless it rains. I am thinking of building a small plastic mesh, barrel type container that I can sink into cooler water to save them till I can go fishing, I saw something like what I want to build at Hachett Jacks in NLR the other day, it was nylon, with little round holes in it, round, kind of like a clothes laundry bag, had some metal hoop rings to keep it expanded. I think the one I looked at was $17.00. There were different sizes. I probably should have bought it.

The bait shop I have been getting my minnows from have not been taking very good care of them and many are dying in their vat and don't last to long once purchased.

I want to compliment Lisa's in Benton, I was in there a couple weeks ago and she had some very healthy looking minnows.

I have seen some use a washing machine tub with screen wire over the big holes to keep the minnows from swimming out. It's heavy enough to sink to any depth you want. Just say'n. Tight lines.

I have friends that keep minnows in ice chests while night fishing they put frozen water bottles or frozen towels in a ice chest. I think it is important to adjust the fish to the water. If they buy a bag of minnows the bags goes into the water before they get let out. The cool water helps, but get it to cold and the minnows go into shock when they hit the water. A cheap aerator helps a bunch to. I have caught bream for bait to catfish with and put them in plastic buckets with holes in them and sunk them off the back of my boat, they kept good.

Keith Sutton said at his Jonesboro talk that you could get a bag of oxygenated minnows, place a layer of ice in a Coleman Extreme cooler, lay a towel over the ice and place the minnow bag over them. Close the lid, and they'll keep for 30 days.

if going into a pond, and you just want to keep them for a few days/weeks, why not use some hardware cloth and make a tube and close off the ends with a couple cut pieces of hardware cloth, tie a rope to it, and toss it in the pond? Put a funnel on both ends, and a few pieces of dogfood in cheesecloth and you have a slick trap for trotliniing bait also.

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Originally Posted by MaggiesMaster

Keith Sutton said at his Jonesboro talk that you could get a bag of oxygenated minnows, place a layer of ice in a Coleman Extreme cooler, lay a towel over the ice and place the minnow bag over them. Close the lid, and they'll keep for 30 days.

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Thats a little hard to believe. We buy them like that all the time and after about four days, you better use them, or at least change out the water. It gets really nasty. I don't think you'll get 30 days out of them.

Sutton swore to the same thing at his talk in Little Rock... He couldn't believe it. He did an experiment on the side of his house, just to see how long they would last, and he said that with just regularly replacing the ice to keep them cool, he was able to keep them for 30 days. Pretty crazy.

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Originally Posted by Bigben7

Sutton swore to the same thing at his talk in Little Rock... He couldn't believe it. He did an experiment on the side of his house, just to see how long they would last, and he said that with just regularly replacing the ice to keep them cool, he was able to keep them for 30 days. Pretty crazy.

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I am sure he probably had pretty unstressed fish and healthy fish also. I would not bet on 30 days in a bag on ice. I would bet on 7 days kept cool as long as they were healthy and unstressed.

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Originally Posted by wish4fish

I have friends that keep minnows in ice chests while night fishing they put frozen water bottles or frozen towels in a ice chest. I think it is important to adjust the fish to the water. If they buy a bag of minnows the bags goes into the water before they get let out. The cool water helps, but get it to cold and the minnows go into shock when they hit the water. A cheap aerator helps a bunch to. I have caught bream for bait to catfish with and put them in plastic buckets with holes in them and sunk them off the back of my boat, they kept good.

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I did this over the weekend, put my minnows in a 48 qt ice chest, on my carport, in the shade. Had some 20 oz frozen water bottles, put in one at a time, some water from my pond, some water out of the cold hydrant and the water they were in, had two of the minnow bucket areators going, sometime just one, changed water about once each 24 hours. I started with about 80 minnows on thursday night went fishing friday morn, sat morn and sat afternoon, each time I put the minnows in large well insulated syrafoam buckets with an areator then placed them back in the cooler when I got home, and there are still about 2 dozen left today. Lost a few by not staying on top of changing that water or puttting a new frozen bottle in soon enough. They will probably all be dead when I get hime this afternoon.

Try getting a food grade 5gal plastic bucket and lid. Drill holes all in the bucket and lid. Attach a rope for retrieval and put the minnows in and secure the lid and sink the bucket.