Leech Trapping

Reading Jon J.’s post about crawler picking got me thinking about leech trapping. I trap creek chubs in the fall and it’s kind of fun to pull up the traps to see what I’ve caught. I was wondering if anybody traps leeches around the Twin Citeis area and if they have any tips they’d care to share? I’ve heard to look for ponds that have water all year long but yet are shallow enough that the fish will be winter killed. I wonder if any of those storm water containment ponds that they build in the suburbs would hold leeches.

Thanks for any advice.

Boone

I also trap creek chubs and sciance(sp?) for minnows, it is somthing fun to do. It may suprise you but even if a pond has winter kill there will still be leeaches in it. A DNR officer up by my cabin tested three ponds that all had winter kill caught over 30,000 in each one. The best advice I can give you is get an old coffe pot and put some old pork or somthing like that in it and punch a few holes in it and stick a rock in it and tie a rope around it and throw it into the pond.

The winterkill thing really does not matter. Leeches will live if there is any good moisture on the bottom. They dig-in the bottom over winter. Minnows don’t really matter either. I’ve caught lots of leeches in ponds with “tons” of rainbow, fathead and stickelback minnows in it. The key is to find “the” pond. Once located, do not tell a soul. Next, fold up a piece of sheet-metal like an acordian (back and forth). Make sure you make the folds tight. Make a hook for a roap/marker on one corner (not to conspicuous though). Get some red meat stuffs like chicken gibblets or beef liver. Slice it up and place into the folds of the “accordian.” Wrap the metal tight to the meat to secure it in place. Sometimes, some kind of hook may be employed to secure the accordian in a closed position. Then launch it into a pond. If there are leeches in the pond, after a good 24-hours,… you’ll have leeches. Note that not all ponds have leeches though. That’s why I say, when you find one, keep it a secret, or the commercial bait suppliers will be hot on your tail!! In the end, the hardest part is,….. sorting size. Good luck.

Try a plain old garage bag with holes in it and beef liver for bait. Set your trap before sunrise and check them by noon.

All the traps that were mentioned will work for leeches. The trick to cathing them is when you set and check your traps. Your bait must be fresh or they will not like it. As the water temps warm up, you need to set your traps in the evening or the meat will spoil. Then one of the keys to catching leeches is checking your traps EARLY in the morning, at 1st dawn is best. The reason is that as the water temps warm up with the sun, the leeches leave the traps and go back in the mud. None of the traps mentioned above actually “trap” the leeches but instead the leeches just stay there or are “held” there. The bigger leeches will leave the traps 1st. That is why its important to get out there as early as possible to check your traps.

Two more questions then. 1. How fresh is fresh? Will frozen beef liver really work? 2. How deep or far from shore must the traps be? Do they come from afar like the mighty catfish?

I guess that was three questions.

Just about anything bloody will work. You will want to set your trap so the scent of the blood will flow with the wind. You preferably want to trap a pond with no inlet or outlet. A foot of water is enough, they’ll find it from the scent.

I have a question about the leeches you catch. How can you tell if the leaches you catch are the right kind to use for fishing? OR will any kind really work?

Anyone have any ideas on how to keep leaches alive durning the late summer? You know how they start dissapering around August well if you catch enough you can probally save them and I bet they would be killer on the water!

Thanks for all the advice and tips. I’ll let you know if I have any success.

Walyecrappie…. I have pretty good luck keeping leeches well into late summer/early fall. I keep them in a cookie jar in the refrigerator. It’s important to change the water every couple of days. If you wait until the water gets cloudy, you’ve waited too long and they’ll start to die off. Once that happens it seems like it’s hard to stop. I’ve also found that’s it’s important to leave the jar open. I think that allows enough oxygen to enter the water. I’ve often read and heard that one should not use city water because the additives that are in it will hurt leeches or crawler but I always use my city water and haven’t notice any harmful effects to either the leeches or crawler.

Another tip… let your leeches warm up for a day or so before fishing with them. Put them in a bucket of room temperature water. They’ll be much more lively that way vs. pulling them out of 35 degree water and sticking them on your hook. I’ll throw the leeches in with my minnows and they’ll eat the dead minnows. This really seems to make nice, lively leeches.

Thanks Again,

Boone

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1. How fresh is fresh? Will frozen beef liver really work?

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Yes Beef liver will work. As far as fresh, think of it as how fresh you would like your food. Early in the spring, when the water temps are low, you can usally leave your traps out all day. As the water starts to warm up, you must pull your traps in the morning and set them again in the evening or the meat will go bad.

We use small styrofoam containers to keep our leeches in . Keep them in the fridge and keep the water clean .We also use tap water It doesnt seem to affect them

Back to Walycrappie’s question….How do you tell which leeches in the trap are the right type for fishing bait? and not just blood suckers! This has gotten my curiousity because I have thought about giving trapping a shot. Leeches get expensive after awhile and then they become unavailable.
Thanks, TGIF

Thanks for the advice! I will be sure to do that. Man I can see it now up at the cabin everyone trying to steal my leeches oh the madness!

I have noticed that some city water has more chlorine than others and that can affect the leeches. I used to live in N. St. Paul and the water there seemed to make the leeches form a bunch of mucus. I just collected rainwater or went to the lake to combat the problem.

Here’s a link to the Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine that talks about all type of bait. There’s a section on leeches that you might find useful.

web page

I put out six coffee can traps baited with beef liver Thursday evening and checked them at first light the next morning but I didn’t catch anything… not even one. Maybe I’ll try some different ponds. I talked to my buddy who traps leeches and he said that if there were leeches in the pond I would have at least caught a few.

Boone

The ideas that were mentioned all work.

I have it all typed out on my site if you want to check it out.

Leech Page

There is some info of keeping them alive too.\

Roger Mayer.

I took everyones tips and set out two traps last night. I got about two dozen leeches between the two traps. They were all pretty small, so I just threw them back.
Will these leeches grow alot in the next week or should I try another pond? Also, what are the orange and green leeches?
Thanks

Any new thoughts or techniques for this post?
DT

yes, i’m interested in sorting the species that work for fishing and those that don’t…

i’m suspecting that 3″ coffee cans with holes drilled in the top of them will work…

also, will not dead minnows work as bait?? hate to waste deer liver…

also, thanks DT for slogging thru the archive. this seems like a great technique when regular leeches ‘dry up’…

and, i’m suspecting that ‘native’ leeches caught on a body of water may be more effective bait than ‘imported’ leeches..

From several web sites:

http://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/html/stories/1997/jun97/bait.htm

Of the 50 or so species of leeches found in the United States, only Nephelopsis obscura, the ribbon leech, is commonly used as fish bait. The ribbon leech is not a blood sucker. In fact, most leeches don’t suck blood; they prey on aquatic worms and insect larvae or scavenge dead animal matter. Fish apparently know the difference too. Leech expert Phil Devore says that in side-by-side tests, fish will gobble up a ribbon leech and spit out a blood-sucking leech.

Collecting ribbon leeches is easy. “You have to find a winterkill lake or pond with no game fish,” says Devore. These shallow water bodies freeze all the way to the bottom or are so oxygen-starved under the ice that all game fish perish. How the leeches survive under these circumstances isn’t well understood, but that’s where to look for them. Leeches have a two-year life cycle. The adults spawn in early spring and die as water temperature climbs in late June and early July. The collecting season runs the following spring from ice-out through the first week in July, says Devore. If the water remains cool, a few adults may last a bit longer. Consequently, there’s a real shortage of leeches in August and September.

You can make a leech trap from a one-pound coffee can or a large soup can. Bait the can with chicken, beef or turkey liver. Pinch the top of the can shut, leaving a few small openings. In early evening, stake or place the trap in knee-deep water with a muddy or silty bottom. Use some kind of a marker to guide you back.

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The best advice I can give you is get an old coffe pot and put some old pork or somthing like that in it and punch a few holes in it and stick a rock in it and tie a rope around it and throw it into the pond.

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x2! we trapped over 300 leeches last year with that method. This is with the perfect pond, so give or take a few, but trapping leeches is well worth it

ttt

What I did was buy a small leech container. Drilled some holes in it, put in chicken liver and a rock and threw it in. I put it in at about 930 last night and checked it at about 930 this morning. I had a bunch of little panfish leeches. Does this mean there are only small ones in this area and I should try another area or pond, or give it ore time? I did throw it back in and will check it tonight.
DT

I’ve done some Canadian outpost fishing and used fresh fish heads for bait. Had leeches all week. Whether that’s legal in Minn, I don’t know. My 2c.

TTT
DT