Trapping Suckers

Does anyone have any experience trapping suckers for fall musky fishing?

I have a litany of questions:

What bait and traps work best?
Do suckers migrate up and down stream? If so, where do they tend to be in the fall?
How picky are musky’s with respect to the species of sucker?

Thanks for the feedback!

Forget the suckers. Get creeks chubs. Much easier to find/trap and have alot more spunk/wiliness to em than a sucker that just goes and sits on the bottom.

Find deeper pools in ditches/creeks and you should find the chubs. Alot of times near culverts is dug out a bit deeper and holds them also. You can trap chubs all year long if your creek has decent water in it.

for me, 10″ is the smallest i want to fish with, 14″ is good, and many times i’ll use 18-20″ long…this means suckers, not big minnows. and if you keep the sucker off the bottom, it’ll keep moving just fine.

i’ve heard bird suet works well for bait.

Good old Mn DNR says anything over 12″ has to be bought at a authorized vendor with the recipient on your person. If you were to want them under 12″ you would have to trap them from non infested water.

yes…and…it only has to be bought at an authorized vendor if you plan to transport them. you can catch suckers over 12″ by hook-and-line for use as bait on the same water. (p.21)

try a small gold hook with a gob of suet.

if you trap for suckers under 12″ long, normal minnow rules apply.