Article by Sue Foster
“OMG, I bought live spot at this tackle store, and they were dead by the time I got to my boat! Then I bought a cast net, caught 200 peanut bunker in one cast, and put them in my live well. It was a disgusting mass of death! So yesterday, I went to another tackle store and bought two pints of minnows. I didn’t have a minnow bucket with me, so I told them to put them in a plastic bag. I had to stop by the Post Office and then the grocery store for my wife. By the time I got home, half of the minnows were dead. Oh woe is me, how can I keep my bait alive?”
Each bait is different. The way you transport and keep your baits are unique to each species.
So let’s start with live minnows. Minnows are generally pretty hardy. But if they run out of oxygen in the water they are swimming in, they will start to die. They use a lot less oxygen then spot, so they will live without an aerator, but you must replace the water occasionally. When they start to swim on their sides, it’s time to drain the water, and put in some fresh saltwater from the bay.
When transporting minnows, remember that the more minnows you have in your bucket, the more water you need to put in it if you don’t have an aerator hooked up to the bucket. If you buy your minnows in a plastic bag with some water in it, plan to get home and put them in your livewell within 10 to 15 minutes. Plan ahead, and buy your “live bait” last if you are doing errands. If you go to the tackle store and buy “live bait” ask for it right before you are ready to go. I can’t tell you how many people get minnows in a bag or jam two pints of minnows in a little flow troll bucket, and then spend another 15-20 minutes shopping for terminal tackle while their minnows are sitting there gasping for air!
Minnows can live without water! So can live eels! Yes, it’s a small secret that a lot of people don’t know about. Put ice in the bottom of a cooler. Layer your minnows or eels in the upper cooler tray. (Some people drill holes in the tray so it drains.) Cover loosely with a wet paper towel. Tip: Only one layer of minnows. They will live all day this way! When I travel to VA to go fishing, I often fill the whole bottom of a cooler with one layer of minnows. I fill a big coffee can with ice and sit it in the cooler and they are all fine and alive by the time I get to the boat.
But, if you tried this with live spot, mullet, or peanut bunker, you would be VERY disappointed. These three species of bait need saltwater, and lots of oxygen. If you catch these baits on your own OR if you find a tackle store that has them for sale, you MUST have a battery operated aerator to transport them any distance at all. Once you get in your boat, you MUST get them in a live well or have them in an aerated bucket or they will die. If you don’t have an aerated bucket, you can put around 6 to 10 baits in a 5-gallon bucket and be prepared to change the water every ½ hour or whenever you look over and see they are starting to keel over.
“I want to keep my live bait overnight….”
This is a tough one if you don’t live on the water. If you are on the water, you can keep live minnows or eels in a “flow troll” bucket. It has holes in the front and back of the bucket. When it lies in the water, the water flows through the bucket keeping the bait alive. Live minnows and eels live great in the bucket. So do things like green crabs. Bunker will die. Mullet will beat themselves to death and spot will usually die also unless you only have a half dozen in the flow troll.
Spot do best in a round pen made out of wire. Many tackle stores sell them. Otherwise, get a trash can and drill lots of holes in it, and float it with “noodles” or “buoys” of some fashion. If you keep them for over a week, you need to keep them fed as well.
If you are NOT on the water and want to keep your spot alive overnight, you need to have a pretty big cooler or a big cooler bucket. We have one of those big square Igloo coolers. We drilled a hole in it so the aerator hose slides through it so you can close the lid. Then we bought an inexpensive aquarium aerator you can plug in the wall at either Wal-Mart or Petco. Sometimes you can find them for under $20. We find that a larger size aerator stone puts out more bubbles then those little tiny stones that come with battery aerators. Then when we are ready to go boating, we switch the wall unit to a portable battery operated one, using the same hose and stone, so the “switch” is easy.
Remember, the less bait you are trying to keep alive, the better success you will have. Keeping one dozen spot alive is a whole lot easier than keeping three dozen alive! If you catch your own spot on “hook and line” be very careful not to squeeze the bait to death taking them off the hook. Every step in catching, transporting, and keeping bait alive is important.
Last, but not least, is peanut bunker. It is very delicate, and is rarely sold because of that. But they are very easy to catch with a cast net because they swim in massive schools and are not as fast as mullet or spot. They are the flashes you see in the commercial harbor, lagoons, and in shallow water bays such as Herring Creek. Cast your net, and only keep two dozen in your live well. Throw the rest overboard or “woe is you” you will have a live well full of dead bait!
Spot and bunker poop a lot as well, especially when you first catch them. I like to keep them in the aerated bucket for a ½ hour before putting them in the live well. This is called “purging.” You always want to “purge” your bait before putting them in an inside bait well.
Keep that live bait alive!
Good fishing….
Sue Foster is an outdoor writer and co-owner of Oyster Bay Tackle in Ocean City, MD and Fenwick Tackle in Fenwick, DE.
