Catching minnows at the lake…..

redblood

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Tired if buying minnow. Anyone ever set minnow baskets at the lakes they fish. I have tons of them. We can catch tons of minnows here on the farm in our creeks but they dont last long in the heat. Thinking about putting a few out when i arrive and checking them as i need them
 

redblood

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My son sets a couple here on the farm and is running thought the woods at 3:30 am to check on morning we are going fishing. We bought an aerator but most dont male the trip. If i could keave a half dozen baited up at
The lake, i should have fresh bait id think. I would them in shalllow back waters and hide the strings somi doubt anyone would bother them. Our primary lake is a low traffic lake that has no development, which i enjoy
 

megalomaniac

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I use the typical wire minnow basket with cone funnels on each end. I take 30lb mono and run 2 strands crosswise forming an X where the 2 halves meet. take white bread, knead it until if forms an air free dough ball, then press the doughball onto the mono X... that suspends the dough in the middle of the trap so the minnows have to swim in to get to the bait. Tie a 15 ft string to a coke bottle float and set trap near bait. That system will catch 100 minnows at a time if put in a good area.

Cast nets are great for saltwater, I carry on on my boat in case I come across a large pod of bait. That being said, I prefer fishing artificials and not fooling with live bait, so don't do it often.... BUT for freshwater, you are going to need much smaller mesh openings (prob 1/4 in) than saltwater, as you are looking for smaller bait than what I'm looking for fishing saltwater
 

Pilchard

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The minners from your creek should live just fine.... They do from mine and I have kept them for days in a bucket....

Make sure your boy puts enough water in the bucket with the aerator. Then, when you get to the lake, change the water out.

They are either dying from getting too hot or the water going bad.
 

TITANSFAN2104

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Before I started Livescoping I used the Engel 13 quart live bait cooler with aerator and the Better-Bait Minnow formula to treat the water. If you do this you won't lose many minnows at all even on the hottest days.
YES. I have the 30qt and use the better bait or gjuice and started using a net to dip instead of my hand. People juice is hard on minnows :)
 

redblood

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The minners from your creek should live just fine.... They do from mine and I have kept them for days in a bucket....

Make sure your boy puts enough water in the bucket with the aerator. Then, when you get to the lake, change the water out.

They are either dying from getting too hot or the water going bad.
The problem we ran into was we got 40 crawdads and about10 creek chubs
If i could throw the dang thing.. I hang it on my graphs, my rod holders my feet.... LOL
yeah the more i research, it seems cast nets may be too much trouble. Im gonna set the minnow baskets tomorrow and check it after a couple of hours, just to see how fast it can fetch em
 

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