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Fish Basket !!!!!!!!!
I really loath fish baskets , I have seen them ruin a good day many times .
The trap door thing on the bottom and the top cannot be trusted .
I cant tell you the number of times I went to put a fish in a basket and the fish numbers already in the basket were lots less or EVEN none !
I have seen old baskets get holes in them on several occasions as well and the fish slip through the holes , heck I even patched up holes and lost fish on new holes the next visit !
Then there are the critters that figure them out , snakes and otters are real good at it and what is even better in some spots are the less than honest people wanting fish to take home !
One of my friends had a brand new one the other day and he said sure toss fish in it if you want ,he was gathering a bunch for a friend .
At around 25 total in it the basket lid hung on the side when I dropped a big fish in it . I didnt notice and sent it back down .
he hangs his basket about 4 foot below the surface .
next fish I put in the basket was HALF empty when i pulled it up and the door was hung up really good on the side of it . :banghead
i had to apologize like crazy and ketch a bunch more to fill it back up .....the only good news i might just add :fish
and he said oh yeah ....i forgot to tell you the lid does that all the time ! :banghead
i way prefer an ice chest or a livewell , because as i tell EVERYONE i hit the water with and this factual for sure .....
THE LONGER A CRAPPIE STAYS IN THE WATER THE MORE LIKELY IT WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO !:yikes

:Rofl well at least you get to catch more to fill it back up.....:banghead

I ziptie the bottom door shut and ziptie a pool noodle around the top so the basket floats. As Ketchn mentioned snakes can be a problem with baskets.

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Are you still complaining about all your crappie that escaped from my basket that had holes in it? :Rofl

I'm beginning to think the same way about fish baskets myself. I like to use fish baskets and livewells to keep crappie alive as long as possible as I prefer to eat fresh fish over frozen fish.

But when I got to my slip yesterday I saw my basket in the water. I pulled it up to see what was in it and found a 5" crappie, a 7" crappie and 2-12" crappies. I returned all four back to the water. Now I am waiting for somebody to ask what happened to their crappie so I can ask them why they left undersized crappie in my basket. :bash

Biggest crappie I ever cost was lost due to fish basket ......never again.

We lost two good fish dinners this summer because of fish baskets. I'll never use another one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ezgoing

Are you still complaining about all your crappie that escaped from my basket that had holes in it? :Rofl

I'm beginning to think the same way about fish baskets myself. I like to use fish baskets and livewells to keep crappie alive as long as possible as I prefer to eat fresh fish over frozen fish.

But when I got to my slip yesterday I saw my basket in the water. I pulled it up to see what was in it and found a 5" crappie, a 7" crappie and 2-12" crappies. I returned all four back to the water. Now I am waiting for somebody to ask what happened to their crappie so I can ask them why they left undersized crappie in my basket. :bash

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your basket is NOT the issue THIS time :Rofl
but baskets ARE the ISSUE ! :Rofl

Put em in the bucket.

No pictures but I swear it's the truth. We got down to the water starting to get set up. We noticed that the door was broken on the basket. My buddy had a large chain stringer from his bass days and we decided it would do fine. We had about 12 fish on it when we decided to eat lunch. When I caught the first fish after lunch I pulled in the stringer to find only fish heads attached. A few minutes later we noticed 3 large turtles surfaced near us. Guess they had lunch too.

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use the ole 5 gallon bucket method for most part myself or if near my toon the livewell there.

And ziptie the bottom door shut and watch for snakes.Attachment 388493

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FUN noodles are fantastic. I even use one I cut for back support.

the problem with floating baskets in Texas is unless its the dead of winter the fish are dead as they will ever get in a matter of minutes most of the year . Our surface temperatures are typically considerably warmer than the water temperature the fish were ketched in .the shock of the cool to warm hurts a crappie about as quick as any fish that can stress out over rapid water temperature changes
sometimes they will even die in a basket if its down pretty deep under the surface . and to be sure a dead crappie is a crappie that is not very tasty pretty quickly if it isnt on ice when it passes on to the great beyond . pale washed out crappie that look like they got a bleach bath isnt my idea of fresh fish by a long shot .