Hello. I just purchased a minnow/crawdad trap today and I would like to take it out and use it this weekend. I am looking for any tips on what is good bait to place in it to attract the minnows and if anyone knows if I have to have a tag on it with my contact info if I leave it for an extended period of time while I fish another area. Thanks
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[#0000FF]No regulation about having to label your trap with your personal information. But not a bad idea in case someone thinks you have "lost" it and takes it home with them. That is the worst part about not staying near your minnow gear. It "gets legs" if you don't watch it. I have even had people start pulling in my basket while I was only a few yards away in a float tube. And they got all cheeky about it when I yelled at them. Some people's kids.
Lots of different bait preferences. Plain old crumbled up bread will work. A good use for the last couple of pieces in a loaf that usually gets thrown away. Instead, save them in the freezer for minnowing trips.
I also mix in a small handful of cheap dry dog food. The smell and the protein help bring in more minnows than bread alone...and some minnows don't seem much attracted to plain bread crumbs. You can buy a small bag of the cheapest dry food you can find and keep it in a plastic container to keep mice away from it in your garage or storage area. Take a small baggie full on your minnow trips and put the unused part back in storage.
One big word of advice if you are not familiar with wire minnow traps. Be sure you fasten the clip that connects the two parts very securely before every throw. Otherwise you will lose one or both halves when the clip comes loose. Lots of half minnow baskets decorating the bottoms of lakes all over the country. Fortunately, both halves are exactly the same and any half will fit any other half. So if you loose a half you can buy a new basket and have a spare half.
I always check my basket within the first fifteen minutes. If there are no minnows I relocate the basket to deeper or shallower water. Until you locate where the minnows are hanging out you will not do well.
Also a good idea to rig with good stout twine and a stick for holding onto and for winding on the twine. If you have a pointed end, you can also stick it into the mud to keep the basket from drifting away in current or rolling down a steep bank if you are not watching it.
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Something I used to do when getting gudgeons for flounder fishing was to attach a 10-20ft portion of dog chain to the basket with a crab pot buoy (any will work: i.e. milk jug) attached to the other end.. The chain keeps it from moving and the buoy allows you to set it in any depth. The chain provides some weight and and the buoy makes finding it very easy.
+ on dog or cat food. A can of cat food with many holes works well too.
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[#0000FF]Good suggestions.
The holy cans of catfood also work well for catching crawdads. But you gotta watch out for the smart ones that take little can openers into the trap with them.
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Maybe to add a question here... Just to point out, I've not used a minnow trap or caught minnows before... Are the fish at that size for chubs, carp, or any other species that are allowed to be kept easy enough to identify between possible game species or other protected species to not end up with something you should not have kept? I'm kind of guessing that different spawn times in different places kind of eliminates some of the chances as would the location you put a trap at.
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My experience is that its fairly easy to tell the difference between carp and fatheads from the gamefish at Cutler, but some of the other species like trout might be confusing with fatheads st a small size. I guess if you aren't sure it's best to error on the side of letting them go. Later J
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[#0000FF]Most places I get minnows there is usually only one species...generally chubs...sometimes carp or fatheads. But there are waters like the Bear River in which there are also various "protected" (game fish) species. And the fry of any species can find their way into a baited basket. You need to know the difference so you can identify them properly and release anything that is not legal to keep and use for bait.
Most waters from which you harvest minnows will not have trout fry small enough to get in a minnow trap. There is little to no natural reproduction when trout are planted in larger sizes and are treated (triploid) to make them sterile.
That has not always been the case at Strawberry and Scofield. In the days before cutts were heavily planted to control the chubs and redside shiners there were also a lot of small trout hanging around the docks along with the harvestable minnows. Trout often showed up in minnow traps or in cast nets. And there were citations issued if a CO checked your catch and found any trout fry.
Fingerling size rainbows are no longer planted in Strawberry. They get eaten too quickly by the cutts. But there are a few naturally spawned cutt fry and kokanee. But the kokes usually do not hang out close enough to shore to be caught by minnow harvesters.
Utah Lake is a good place to harvest carp fry. But there are so many other species that live and spawn in Utah Lake that it is common to have both carp fry and protected species in the same haul. Again, you need to know the difference and immediately cull out the non-legal species.
Yes, knowing where to place your minnow traps or throw your cast net is important. In spots with some water clarity you can often see the minnows and place your traps or cast your net with visual reference. But in murky waters you need to move around and experiment more until you find where your targets are holding. And that can change not only from day to day but often from hour to hour. A lot of minnows move around...foraging for food and looking for shelter from predators.
Yes again...spawn times can be among the best times to harvest minnows like chubs and redside shiners. That is when they school up and move closer to shallow water. Much easier to find and harvest. Like many other species, spring is the time or that stuff...but is different in different lakes because of variations in temperatures.
It pays to learn the life cycles and habits of the minnows in the spots you go to harvest them. You also have to learn how changes in weather and water levels affect them. The low water and other factors the last two years have rendered most of my formerly best minnow spots almost barren. The last time I stopped in at my favorite minnow hole it was almost dry...with nary a minnow in sight. And all I got was a lot of mosquito bites.
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