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Had a field day on the goldens earlier this summer-pulling dozens whenever I threw my traps in. Now things have slowed to a crawl, I`ve got 5 dozen lil ones and about 4 dozen mediums in the tank. Dats all so far. Been catchin so many lil ones , I`ve been letting em go. I think I may have beat up my goldie spots and done sum damage? I have left these couple spots alone and will hit em again just b4 ice . I have been concentrating on finding new places, my wife says those minnows ain`t free, ya burnt $50 gas lookin 4 em!Not much luck there, plenty of fathead minnows , which ya can`t use in NH. I have about 50 creekchubs in the 6"-12" range for pike/lunkah bait. All caught rodnreel in the stream/river on my property. I have a 4 acre pond on the property also, which is strange , in that I am striking out trappin in it, even thou I have seen large schools of shiners working the surface late afternoons, early evening. d**n commorant has no problem catchin em, seen em eat a few biggies around 7-8". His days are numbered. Pond is in a SandPit which has been closed for years. Pond drops off rapidly into 40 FOW with a sand bottom. 6 feet off the shore it`s 8ft deep. Dangerous place for dogs /kids. Close to impossible to get out ifya fall in. Sand just keeps giving way. Hardly any weeds, no pads ,reeds, cattails etc, just sum bottom growth of tangleweeds about a foot off the bottom. I have thrown multiple traps out at multiple depths, breaded/chum areas, even floated a trap 6 feet down . Still nuttin. I netted a bunch of em one day when they cruised too close to the shore, but they pretty much act like open water schoolin fish and stay away from the shoreline. I hope to drop traps thru the ice and restock the bait tank mid/late season. Any tips/ideas on how to extract these bits of silver n gold would be greatly appreciated! TY ROTT PS: How is everyone else doing , filling the baittanks/trappin??
Was truly amazed to find out that I could get the most minnows in the first hour, leaving them overnite, (they are smart, I watched them go in and out of the trap), you usually end up with a trap full of giant bait because they can't get back out. Yes, the cat food does work for every species, but you could have phenomenal luck using cheese, the only problem, it soils the water a ton. that's why I use the the cat food, just for scent, so I don't soil my water. Where do you live? It could determine the species of bait available to you.MO
the shad and river shiners are thick in the big river now has anyone caught these and kept them alive in a bait tank could use the umbrella seine to trap them thankx mo
I have a similar post up about catching bait. I was thinking it may be a bit too early to trap bait as ice is a few months away and keeping them alive might be a chore. I don't want to catch them only to have them die eventually over time. Any suggestions on keeping them alive? I'd be putting them in my field stone cellar and it stays mighty cool down there even on the hottest days. I would guess that you should keep it well aerated, cool and do regular water changes of about 1/3 the water column. Do you guys just use tap water treated to dechlorinate the water or are you changing the water with buckets of river/pond water?
Crap, the death toll climbs ,but is slowing, hopfully I can beat it with daily water changes for awhile! I got a Bobcat that`s comes and cleans up the dead fish pile. I`m sure she`ll clean up the crappie husks this winter eagerly too! Gonna get a trail cam and see if I can get sum pics. Seen her twice now, big cat!
its a submersabile 500gph attached to a prefilter then to a post filter that runs it on top. intake bottom outflow top plus 5 pumps with air stones its like the tub turned over in 1 day.water is warmed by pump and parked car plus fridge and freezer garage stays plenty warm mo