Home bait tank

[Aaron Lariscy]

I prefer to use live bait when fishing for catfish and stripers in the river but it's always a pain in the rear having to catch bait the day before or day you want to go because sometimes the bait just doesn't cooperate. I have a 10 gallon bait tank in my boat but it can't support many fish for very long so I decided to make me a big bait tank at home. Now when the bite is hot with the bait I can catch extra and store them untill I get ready or either I can buy bait from town and store them for extended periods of time.

The freezer is not working right now but I may have to attempt to fix it come summer time to keep the water temperatures down but only time will tell. I also need to come up with a better filter medium right now I only have a piece of screen wire in my filter box.

 

[Johny25]

Thats a great idea Aaron, and great use of a non working freezer. I wish we could fish with live bait out here. If we could I could just swing by my buddies house to get bait or vice versa =D>

 

[KevinWI]

nice use of freezer....wish we could do that here in WI....can't transport bait away from water the bait is trapped....which sucks...but they are trying to eliminate the spread of VHS disease.....makes minnows twice as expensive...hate to say it, but I'm going to trap my own bait anyway...minnow prices are just too expensive not to...
I'm making a tank out of a large cooler instead of a freezer.

 

[RiverBottomOutdoors]

I made one once. Could keep bream alive for about 4-5 days. Never tried to keep shad alive in it. I find that to have a good bait tank, you have to have good filtration.

Pretty cool site. Use it to calculate how many gallons your bait tank will hold.
https://www.gardenponds.com/Pondcalculators.htm

 

[Bmac]

Try laying a 1"-2" layer of foam on top of your screen,then a layer of pillow fiber above that. Pillow fiber can be bought in bags at Walley World for a few bucks. The foam can be washed out and sqeezed dry. That's what I use in my shad tanks.

 

[fender66]

This is a great idea. =D> =D>

 

[user 7806]

I would think that any type of filter media that you would use in a pond or aaquarium filter would work in a bait tank. I used to use charcoal in mine along with sponge or fiber depending on the filter I was using.

 

[Jim]

Love it! :beer:

 

[Vermonster]

If you wanted to use Charcoal - I'm thinking you could probably use the filters for compost and trash pails. Search for "charcoal compost filter" on amazon. They run about 6 bucks or so, but I think I've seen them cheaper at bed bath and beyond that last time my wife dragged me there.

 

[200racing]

i know a guy who is a croppie chaser. he has a 1/2 acre pond stocked with only bait minnows right out his back door. he hasnt bought bait in years.

 

[arkansasnative]

i know a guy who is a croppie chaser. he has a 1/2 acre pond stocked with only bait minnows right out his back door. he hasnt bought bait in years.

GENIOUS!!! =D>