Bait collection and care

[unipsychofishman]

So recently, I have been making efforts to be self-sufficient as far as bait (although I seldom use it except when icefishing, night fishing, or hot summer days at mid-day when fishing can be tough).

I have taken to walking along the shores of a pot-hole pond at midnight with a flashlight, dip net, and pail catching dozens of large, 4-6 inch leeches (which I hate passionately - and to think that I once swam in that filthy pond!) which are then stored in the fridge until my next fishing trip.

I have also recently began setting home-made bottle and jug minnow traps for the fathead minnows, which have just begun spawning here this week, and then freezing them individually, spread out on top of a plastic bag on a shelf in the freezer (which my family loves I'm sure). I set my trap by a nest I had found yesterday afternoon and by morning I had 74 large fatheads in just the one trap.

I have yet to figure out the art of keeping worms but then I will be fully self-supported at which point I intend on never buying bait again.

How is the best way to keep large earthworms?

[unipsychofishman]

The two traps I had set yesterday Produced exactly 100 fatheads and were literally full to the brim so that you couldn't even stuff many more in if you tried. To remedy this I built a large minnow trap from a 5 gallon pail and some wire mesh and set it up at 1:00 in the morning. I checked it at 9:00 and had caught exactly 260 large fatheads just in that pail trap! It was just teeming with fish. I let them all go because I didn't really need more bait nor could I deal with them all with my modest freezing set-up before I need to get to work.
I just use a small handful of bread crusts as bait.

[bacon]

give cheerios a try as minnow bait. works better then bread for me. do you have to add fermeldahyde to the minnows where you are at, i know some places in canada you have to kill/preserve them with the stuff in order to used caught bait. good trapping to you.

bacon

[bacon]

also wanted to mention, monitor you times, you might find you are letting it sit to long. when i was trapping golden shiners, i would leave them out for 24 hours, and catch 10 minnows, left it out for 12 hours and caught about 10 minnows, left it out for 6 hours and same thing. some times there might be as many as 20 or so. one day while the wife and i were placing the traps for the day, putting out a total of 3 traps in a small pond. and after getting them all in and looking around, i decided to pull the first trap just to see after about 15 minutes of soaking. i was floored to find nearly 50 minnows in it. i had to go to work, but the wife spent about 2 hours walking from trap to trap, pulling them out, emptying them and tossing them back in, just working in a circle around the pond and caught 1200+ shiners, we used those to stock a slightly larger pond that is now overpopulated with stunted shiners, but the bluegills also populated that pond and collecting shiners is a fight to deal with all those little blasted gills. long story made short is, if you have a good spot, some minnows will get in eat the bait and leave if you leave them to long, try some short sets and see what you find.
bacon

[unipsychofishman]

That is a very good suggestion. I knew that with the amount of minnows I had in the traps I was likely losing them at the same or greater rate as I was trapping them and so it makes sense that productivity would be increased by pulling them in more frequently. This would depend somewhat on the level of baitfish activity though I suppose.

Also on the topic of minnow traps; I had an interesting find yesterday. I went to a sporting goods store and found that they were selling minnow traps there. Being that I had been attempting to make the largest trap permitted by provintial regulations I had a pretty good idea of what the legal dimentions were and after looking at thier traps I was certain that they were actually selling traps that were illigal to use here! I got a tape measure from one of the clerks and measured it and indeed it was at least a foot over the legal length! And let's just say that the store is not exactly very near any border to an area where use of such a trap would be legal. It kinda makes you wonder.

[unipsychofishman]

I caught a whopping 7 inch long leech last night at the pond for bait. Absolutely never swimming in there again!
I also found out that the big trout are actively hunting the steep, reedy banks for the young-of-the-year fathead minnows after dark even until midnight. might go out for a midnight fishing trip tonight with a float and some deadbait.

[unipsychofishman]

So a while back my Dad, Uncle, and myself tried out the fatheads I froze and caught a ton of walleye on them and a few small pike. They sure stunk a lot and at the end of the day they were pretty juicy (partially thanks to my Dad grinding them to a pulp under his feet in the boat on a number of occations )
All this to say that I am now experimenting with salted minnows and finding the methods that work best and have the simplest procedures. I am getting quite the opperation here.