New at live bait fishing — keeping shiners ALIVE

[RCH3319]

Trying live bait fishing for bass for the first time tomorrow.

 

how do I keep the shiners alive in a bass boat livewell?

[casts_by_fly]

put them in and turn the aerator on.

[gim]

Be prepared to give them CPR or mouth to mouth.  They die if you look at them wrong. 🤣

 

[airshot]

The live well may be to big to keep cool.  Along with aeration, shiners like cool temps and absolutely no chemicals in the water !!  I use a small aerated minnow bucket and drop in a small water bottle that is frozen. I can keep shiners for a full day and often over night if going out the next morning.  I do swap out the frozen water bottle at least every 4 hours in the summer.  In your livewell, depending on size, add a few frozen water bottles to keep it cool.  Remember to remove dead ones asap !!  Once they die, there body gives off a type of ammonia that will kill others.  On a busy day, I put dead ones in another can and try to use them quickly ....hope this helps...

[gim]

^ this is exactly why I hardly ever use live bait anymore.

[crypt]

put them in the livewell keep recirculating the wate.,Keep some frozen bottles on hand to keep the water cool. not to cold but cool. like airshot said they die you get rid of them toot sweet.

[WRB]

Where are you located?

If the lake water is within 10 degrees of the water the shiners were in should be an issue.

What king of shiners? Golden are big and fragile but smaller shiners are easier to keep healthy. What kills live baitfish fast is over crowding and losing scales.

The old style bait bucket kept in the water works better then a live well and a round bait bucket works better then rectangular live wells. 
Aeration battery operated stone helps a lot. Get a small fine soft dip net to capture the shiners, not to handle roughly and don’t return any shiners back in the bucket or livewell.

Please use light wire circle hooks!

Tom

 

 

[Bigassbass]

I bought a small cooler then mounted an aquarium pump that runs on batteries to the side, drilled a hole in the top and ran the bubble pipe down to the bottom of the cooler with a stone on the end.  Use water from were you buy or catch the minnows, don't use tap water, and get them out with a dip net.  

[bowhunter63]

If you really like it. Those Xtreme bait tanks are killer. Costly but they work great