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I read on Fisheries.com that some people use jelly on their bread and it does better. I tried it with a lot of success over the summer, but have not tried yet this winter. Maybe tomorrow. I also have found that like 2 or 3 hours seems to be the best soak time for me. If I go much longer than that I think I lose some.
I use lightly crushed saltine crackers, 2 per trap, set in a shallow area around 4 pm and traps are always full by morning. This is from a tiny pond that only holds golden shiners.
I'm gone back and forth about this for a while man. I think it depends on the water. I've had good success soaking for a few hours and good success leaving it in for a day. I think that once the fish get inside the trap, they're so safe and secure in there I don't think they're going to leave if there's food and security.
Knowing the cautions they claim about dumping bait into ponds, I've been dumping leftover shiners and fatheads into my small pond for years. This fall I saw large schools of shiners roaming and boiling on the surface feeding. I wonder if I could set a trap under the ice and catch them? I almost feel guilty doing that though because it's like having a minnow savings account haha...
Been catching minnows in the winter for the last couple years. I have found the bright colored traps work best and use dog food for bait. My bright trap catches about 10 to 1 in a black trap.
When you say brightly colored do mean like the galvanized silver looking ones? Or are you painting them or something?
Yeah the black ones never worked good for me. Harder to find the galvanized ones anymore.
The black traps are worthless (suck) and are more expensive. IDK why but it's a proven fact look it up.
if you have a black trap , i've seen spray paint in chrome or gold at wally world maybe you could spray them a different color, i have minnows that are 2 weeks old out in the garage right now, bucket has maybe 2 gal of water with air pump in it , have found out that in winter you want to keep air stone up near top of water, less current seems to help, they seem to die quicker if we put the stone close to the bottom , summer it's just the opposite , stone toward the bottom. have only lost 3 or 4 out of maybe 50 or so in two weeks , i just change water every couple days with water from another bucket that has set at least overnight to decloranate, I don't know it seems to work for us
if you have a black trap , i've seen spray paint in chrome or gold at wally world maybe you could spray them a different color