Fish-Hawk.Net

Any one have tips on storing live minnows at home for ice fishing.

hey razor what i do is just get a coler size depending on haw many and how large the minnows are and an aretor there about 10 to 20 bucks i usualy keep them in the basement because it is cooler down there and yea wher elce are you gonna keep thetm
but so fall the have all been full of life and not one dieing so you should be ok doing liike that and or any other responces
have a good one
walleye man

Like walleye man said, basements usually do the trick. Coolers are a plus because they resist quick temperature changes. Another thing that I do is, if yo have a small creek that runs by your house, find a bucket with a lid. 5 gallon buckets work well. Make sure there are plenty of holes in it. Get ya some rope and tie it off and drop the bucket right in. There is plenty of Oxygen in the creek to sustain the minnows that way. Ive left them that way for as long as 3 weekend before and when i retreived them they looked better than when i got them from the bait store

one more thing....if you're on "city" water, go to a pet store or even walmart's pet section and get a product that treats the water and removes the chlorine etc. And change the water frequently

I use a 10 gallon aquarium, city water, treated with de-chlorinator, a cheap water purification system, and bubble stone. I feed 'em tropical fish food, and keep them in a fairly quiet place in the house, downstairs rec-room. No need to change the water, just top it up and add de-chloinator. Biggest problem with this system is keepin the little buggers in the water .. they are very quick, and have a habit of jumpin' out of the aquarium when you walk into the room. I solved this by putting a top on the aquarium with a towel over the top, isolating and darkening the tank.
Worked great for me ... kept all my buddies unused minnows and was able to fish whenever I wanted to. They last forever in this setup, upwards of 6 to 8 weeks.
The "floaters" are usually the guys who like to swim full speed face first into the sides to tank. These need to be cleaned on a regular basis.

d-mo

I agree with you D-mo but would add one thing. If you take a garbage bag and do a cut out of the back and sides, then tape it on the tank it will darken the tank even more. If you have any plastic aquarium plants or a few rocks for them to give 'em cover that's helpfull as well.

Thanks guys. The bait shop is 10 min from my house and my ice shack is 1 min away. This will save me lots of time and money.

How much food do you feed your minnows, how ofter do you feed and what kind of food specifically do you recommend or not recommend?

I was able to keep them 2 weeks max with aerator.

i not sher..but i think there was a MAXIMUM off minnows you can have in your possesion..

this is mabe if i remeber it right..mabe not.. .

see you in your section for a little outhing razor.

any luck at carillion for walleye now.? should be good.

joco

Hey Joco, lots of small walleye at carillion. pm sent

All the tips that you guys gave are great. There is one more thing you need to do. You need to give them light if you don't want them to turn white on you.

I agree with the aquarium thing, Last winter my neighbor(fishing buddy) used an aquarium in his garage to keep our minnows alive between excursions.... it did the job very well.

You can buy aquariums real cheap on kijiji or usedottawa, get one with a pump and filter.... it will save you $$ if you plan to do a lot of fishing this winter.

Colder water is better since it will hold more dissolved oxygen. If you can keep the water temp. about 1- 5C that is ideal. A small powerhead to keep the water moving will stop it from freezing if you keep the tank in your garage in the winter.

jjcanoe

Some guys like to leave there minnows out in the garage, but I found that mine survived real well in the basement, at around 68 C. Even when they went outside they just kinda slowed down and were not shock ed by the cold. One thing they did care about what that the water was filtered, to remove all the cack and give em abit of the O2.
I fed mine ordinary tropical fish food, nothin more.

d-mo

Good tip about the light and also water temp.