Bait Tanks

How many here use bait tanks in the winter and has it been worth the money and time? Maybe my question is a bit after the fact but I’ve wanted one for a couple of years now for hold-over bait (weekend to weekend mostly) and finally put one together. I’m probably going to make a few modifications over the next little bit and am interested in hearing the thoughts of others doing this.

Here’s a pic of my completed tank.

Chris, I’m not sure how much bait you would like to keep at anyone time, but I’ve been using Frabill’s Aqualife Station this last summer for some of my bait.

I don’t like to mix chubs or suckers with my bullheads and I’ve kept suckers for over three weeks by changing the water and keeping them in a cool area.

They run about $80.00 which is a good price considering what a good air pump that will last costs. There’s a nifty little led light on the inside that turns on when the door is open as well.

Not sure if that’s what your looking for or not, but I thought I would pass it you’re way.

I’ve seen them at Fleet Farm.

When I used to tip up fish a lot with bigger minnows and shiners a large cooler always worked well. Those bigger minnows need more room than a bunch of fat heads or crappie minnows. Would just set in on the step just outside the house door to the garage and change water every two to three days. Would need to set it inside the door on really cold nights.

i use a small deep freeze freezer that holds about 55 gallons of water to keep minnows. you can make some pretty easy minnow tanks with worn out deep freezers and pvc piping. I am just using a normal 30 gallon bubbler and water filter, but i will soon switch over to a pond filter/pump since it was made to handle muck better that you will get from minnows.

I used to try and keep minnows over the week in my on ice bait cooler but frankly have tired of constantly changing the water. It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t on city water.

I realize I’ll still have to swap water (see picture added above) but my thought was to put in a bio-filter (it’s 3x capacity needed for the volume of water) so that I could at least spread it out a bit more. Plus, I anticipate catching vs. buying bait at some point in the future and wanted the parts somewhat scalable to use in a larger system. I used a spare/unused sump pump (350 gpmish) that I had around but don’t think it being used continuously is doing it any good and will upgrade to a 1,000 gpmish pond pump at some point I suspect. Doing so will probably drive some changes in the filter sprayer bar so as to handle the additional flow.

Well that’s a bit larger then what the Frabill’s going to hold!

Yep. City water sucks for minnows. Makes you wonder it will kill a minnow that fast but its just fine for us to drink. No problems on well water.

I keep minnows alive for weeks in the winter in my 2 gallon minnow bucket placed in the fridge. Change the water when a few start dying off and I’m good to go

I run two 55 gal. poly drums but have no were to keep it in cold weather you can get them any wear and most of the time free