Quote Originally Posted by crappieslinger View Post
Thank you all for the replies! I would have responded sooner but we are spending 10 days at the lake fishing for crappie and walleye and this is the first time I have been anywhere with internet access.

I will certainly start from scratch again and keep the number of shiners down so I am not over crowding them.
Does anyone have a link or know of where I can pick up one of the coolers you were referring to?

Thanks again for all the help! It is much appreciated.
Check with the bulk or wholesale bait dealers in your area. They very often have a hand in setting up or remodeling the bait shops they service. If they cannot or do not supply the equipment themselves, they will probably be able to point you to someone who does.

In a slightly different twist, there used to be coolers for small time milkers that keep milk cold by floating the "cream cans" in cooled water. You might even be able to find a former milker who has an abandoned one that still works or can be repaired. If you have an organic milker who still provides unpasturized milk (where that is still legal) check with them, or with any local Amish or Old Order Mennonite (they have retained a remarkable supply for some of the products that are obsolete elsewhere and not all of them completely eschew electricity, either). Or check with a local grocery supply house that may be able to point you to one of those small grocery store coolers that you sometimes still see on the end caps in supermarkets to keep fresh or frozen meats fresh. There used to be that kind of thing for bottled soda pop too, and one of those would work even if used and maybe available from one of the local pop distributors. Anybody of any age close to mine can remember pulling cold bottles out of the ice water. You don't need the ability to make ice in one of those just to keep it cool enough to prolong shiner life.

Even an old refrigerator laid on its back and blocked up enough for air to circulate under through the coils and with any holes blocked by aquarium type silicone caulk to stop any leakage might just work fine. There used to be quite a demand for old refrigerator liners caulked up like that to provide enough room for the spawning of larger aquariums fish such as angels and some of the cichlids or even for goldfish.

You can still get "apartment sized" refrigerators with or without an internal freezer compartment that might work for that. Just turn off the freezer part or turn it way down and you might not need anything else. Or one of the smaller cheaper chest model freezers, some of which have drains and some don't. Check your local Kmart, or building supply super store. Or for those of you who love Wally World, you can probably find just such a device there.

There are all kinds of options for this sort of cooling device for one's shiners. If I were to do this I would just get a chest model freezer and turn the cooling up to as warm as it could go, after making sure that it would hold water, and caulking it up with aquarium grade silicone if it didn't. Pretty much ready to use right out of the shipping carton.

BUT be aware that your cooled shiners will have to be brought back to something close to the water temperatures you are going to fish in, and any new additions to your holding tanks would have to be gradually cooled as well. Abrupt warming or cooling can kill your bait just as quickly as too warm can wreak havoc in your holding tanks. The bait fish cannot take abrupt warming any more than they can take abrupt cooling. And bait buckets in the warmest weather cannot be overcrowded, should be insulated, and well aerated and even then you will get significant loss during a day's fishing in hot weather.

Those of you with installed minnow wells in your boats have another problem which is cooling down the lake water you pump into them sufficiently to keep your bait going while fishing. That likely means more than just insulation, too, although a few milk jugs full of frozen water added when you fill the tanks at the lake might be enough to get you started. Here I am assuming you will have to come with empty tanks and pump them dry when you leave which is a legal requirement in a lot of areas to prevent the spread of some of the worst invasive species, and that also means discarding the unused portion of the bait you bring with you also when you leave. If that doesn't apply where you fish, the problem is less acute and you can be more generous with what you bring with you.

All in all I find that using plastics is a whole lot less hassle and is just as effective and generally more so in most, if not all, cases as live bait anyway, but if you really must keep bulk shiners around all year there are ways to keep down the natural mortality of crowded minnows kept in warm weather, at least during storage.