Ice Fishing Bait: Keeping Minnows Alive at Home

Video Transcript

"Let’s talk about how to keep minnows or shiners alive at home so that you can keep them alive either before or in between ice fishing trips. There's a number of different ways to hold minnows. I typically just use a five gallon bucket. I fill it about three quarters of the way with water. You could also use a big cooler, a big fish tank. Typically you want to keep these in a cool dry area, maybe in a basement if you have it. One of the important things to consider is that most tap water, if you're on town or city water, has chlorine in it. So the best thing to do is fill a bucket with your tap water. Then let it sit for a couple of days to allow the chlorine to evaporate. Another thing to be very careful about are sudden changes in water temperature. For example, if I were to bring a bucket home with me from ice fishing that was filled with water that was very cold, I wouldn't want to immediately put those fish in the warmer water. I would want to let that bucket sit and come to room temperature for a few hours before adding cold water from the tap. Another thing you want to do is always do frequent water changes. If I have a bucket of shiners, say a five gallon bucket with a dozen shiners, I'm going to want to change about half to three quarters of that water every day or two to ensure that those fish have clean fresh water. You can also but aerators, either the portable kind that run on batteries that come with a tube and an air stone. Just simply hook that on to the outside of bucket. Put it in to the bucket. That blows air and oxygen into the water for the fish. The other thing that's available is you can locally buy what's called Catch and Release formula which is just simply granules that you put in to your bucket of water. It has some chemicals in it that allow the fish to survive better."