That Time of the Year Again........Live Bait

[Rojo]

I can always tell when it's time to bring some live bait with me Crappie fishing. As the water heats up and competition between thicket Crappie wanes I like to transition to larger live bait offerings for bigger Crappie. Not liking trolling and not a huge fan of casting (I will do it at least) what I do find relaxing is watching a float. That slow descend into the depths then triggers a flip of the pole tip to sink the hook into a fish. The next part is feeling the weight afterwards also the type of fight, when you know it's a Ketchn Potato Chip Crusting Crappie.



When it's time to shutdown my live bait tank for the season I always clean the filter media of both the Koi filter and the water return bucket pictured here. The 2gal bucket has permanent air conditioner filter media cut and stacked inside and holes drilled in the bottom so the returning water gets filtered again before falling into the tank. I clean out the tank itself well too but no detergents are used. After everything is dry the equipment is stored till the beginning of summer.

The best filter I have found for refilling the tank that really works is the Boogie-Blue Plus filter. Amazon sells as well as others.



This is the filter system I use. I have used this for 10 years now, just wash, rinse, repeat year after year. Once you buy one that's it.


BioSmart 5000 | Atlantic-Oase

After mixing the filtered water with Finer-Shiner the system is allowed to run for a few days before adding the live minnows to be sure no chlorine is still in solution.

This year I'm looking at buying Flathead minnows from Anderson Farms, the same farm we wrote about in the Hatchery to Hook article in Crappie Now magazine. Once I receive the minnows I will follow up on this thread.