Oziles Minnows

[Boosterman]

Wow I never thought you had to pay for o2 in a bag. Here when you buy minnows it is automatic they put it in the bag. The last time I told him to just put them in a pail he looked at me weird. Then I told him I just live down the street and I have a bait well system at home. When I go on my trips I bring a 10 gal aerator pump with an inverter. All my minnows in a cooler with the pump and none of the minnows ever die. I tried every brand of battery aerator. They all suck. For the price you pay for minnows there is no reason why they shouldn't have 02. Just my 2 cents.lol

[matcole]

http://www.rapala.com/products/accessor ... ool+Combos

I bought this last year for around 15 bucks at walmart and place the minnows in a cooler bucket that seals with the flip up lid on top to run the hose down into the water. I have had minnows last a couple of days with in there.

Denis

[Pints]

I know that Bits and Baits puts oxygen in their bags of minnows.

[slushpuppy]

Minnows have been problematic this summer for everyone. With the weird weather we've been having, harvesters have had a hard time catching good and lively minnows. Shiners are weaker than dace and fatheads, but dace and fatheads don't grow as large, so when we can get healthier minnows, they're smaller, which prompts other kinds of complaints.

In the summer,

• keep your minnows cool,

• put the bag on ice in a cooler, preferably with some newspaper between the ice and the bag. The newspaper will prevent the water from getting too cold.

• Never put ice in the water itself, the ice may contain chlorine which is poisonous to fish.

• Never add city water to your minnow bag for the same reason, not even a little bit. If you know your ice and water don't contain any chemicals, you should be ok. Water that has been sitting in a container for a couple of days should be OK as its chlorine would have evaporated.

• If you're not going to start using the minnows for a couple of hours, you'll have to find some way of aerating and replacing the water. Not only will the water be low in oxygen, it'll be high in ammonia, again, poisoning the minnows.

• Get some water from a river or creek and replace up to 1/2 of the water in the bag.

• When you do get to your destination, it's a good idea to use a trolling minnow bucket, it allows water to circulate through your bucket without the minnows escaping.

• When you're done fishing and don't need your minnows any longer, never dump them in the water, that's illegal. Dump them in the bush where they have no way of flipping back into the water. Better yet, put them in a ziploc bag and freeze them to use later. Pike and channel cats love'em.

Keeping minnows in the winter is much easier, but that'll be another installment to be written later.

As for adding oxygen to the bag, it's standard practice for many shops to do it automatically, but it still costs the shop money for all that oxygen and 4ml thick bags. Next time you go in and don't really need the oxygen and thick bags, bring your minnow bucket and help out your local shop, maybe the prices won't go up so sharply next year.

Good luck!

[plncrzy]

what also works extremely well is "Aqua-Lung", I used those once when the minnows looked like they were about to die... i.e.e they were begining to die off one by one and were all sitting at the bottom barely moving, then once I put in the aqua-lung pellets.... They were on steroids!! these things practically were jumping out of the bucket!!!

They cost a bit... I think I paid $2.99 for one treatment, but I think I may look on ebay to buy an entire carton for this winter.

[eye-tracker]

One tip I can give you that keeps your minnows alive once they are out of the bag is The Oxygenator. I have these in my live-well and bait wells in my boat and they really make a difference. You can also purchase a portable one for minnow buckets etc.


The Oxygenator

-sheldon