Keeping bait fresh

[Cowboypirate]

How do you keep and preserve your bait? 

I know there was a thread about this a year or two back, but I cant find it.

[TubeDude]

I'm assuming you mean while fishing?  Otherwise you freeze it or vacuum pack and then freeze it.

While on the water, nightcrawlers need to be kept cold...or they turn into slimy, stinky ooze.   So keep your worm containers on ice.  Or, if in a float tube...without a cooler...keep them in a small soup-sized insulated container (Thermos).  That's what I do...summer and winter.  In summer I often add a small sealed package of frozen gel.  Works well for minnows or cut bait too.

I hit the Savers and other discount used stores and look for all the different small insulated containers.  You can usually find different sizes for 50 cents to a  dollar.  Cheap insurance to keep your bait fresher longer.

[Cowboypirate]

I actually meant both, I am also very curious about opinions on freezing whole vs gutted, vs fillets and if you salt or brine before you freeze?

Also how long you keep frozen bait. I have a bit i think I need to turn over on inventory

[Kent]

Vacuum seal and freeze my chub fillets and whole minnows. Night crawlers and meal worms (when i have them) kept in my bait fridge. While fishing, I keep my bait in a cooler with Blue Ice.

[Anglinarcher]

Good question, and lots of theories.  All of the information you have seen above is "better than most" of us do, and we pay the price.

As for live worms, mealworms, waxworms, even grasshoppers and crickets, keeping them cool, not cold, is a really really really good idea.  For nightcrawlers, 40 to 60 degrees is the best long term temperature, with 50 ideal.  I kept worms as a kid in the garage in a freezer I got off of "shop and swap" on the radio all year set at 50 degrees.  Worms will freeze so having an ice cube in the container against worms is a great way to kill them, but better a frozen dead worm than a smelly oozy one, so I have and will do it again.  There are containers that have a top and bottom compartment so you can put ice in one side and bait in the other and it keeps them perfect.  Mealworms can actually handle higher temperature for some time, but 80 degrees is a bad idea.  TD's use of small thermos type containers sounds perfect, but it might be a good idea to wrap the ice cube(s) in a paper towel and than a small zip lock bag to keep the bait dry.  As for grasshoppers and crickets, keeping them in the shade is normally sufficient, but above freezing is good.

Frozen bait is more difficult.  Gutting?  Well, on a larger bait yes, for sure.  I have wondered about injecting strong salt water into the internal cavities of un-gutted fish before freezing to preserve the quickly spoiling guts, but have not done it.  For smaller bait, I salt first, both sides, let them draw out excess moisture in the refrigerator than vacuum pack and freeze.  I have had excellent results for over a year of storage, often two years.  Hint, I have actually had my best results using "no salt" which is potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride.  

I have also had some really good results by mixing up some super salty ice water in a bucket and putting the live minnows into it.  It dispatches them fairly quickly, they absorb the salt and it removes excess water, the internal cavities seem to take on the salt, and once home, give them a quick rinse, another quick salt dusting, vacuum pack, and a couple of test packages are going on 3 years now.  I will take out a package next summer to see where it has gone.

But, I am also lazy.  I got some huge carp this year, fillet them, salted them, put them in a zip lock, submerged the bags in water to remove most of the air, and sealed them up and froze them.  So far, long COVID months later, they look like they will be ready and ok if I actually need them.

So..........

waiting for the other ideas.

[TubeDude]

You have already gotten some good input from qualified sources.  I'll just add a couple of things from my own experience and preferences.

MINNOWS:  Optional to salt them before freezing.  Doesn't hurt and can help firm them.  And most fish like salt.  Vacuum sealing is the best way to remove air and prevent freezer burn.  But my way of freezing in a little water...with all of the air bubbles squeezed out...works well too.  I have used minnows frozen 2 years and they feel, look and smell like fresh caught.  But, to take it one step further, it is okay to refreeze tougher minnows like chubs and small carp.  If you have kept them cold during your fishing trip...and have some left over...refreeze them as if they were freshly caught (new bag, a bit of water, etc.).  I have had trips on which the "recycled" minnows got more attention than fresher ones.  And not just with catfish.

Don't thaw frozen minnows in your microwave...or even in warm water.  I take them out of the freezer the day before a trip.  I leave them to thaw at room temperature for a couple of hours and then put them in the refrigerator.  By the next morning they are still a bit frozen but will be just right when you hit the water.  As mentioned, I keep them in small insulated containers.  In summer I may add a couple of small squares of frozen "blue ice"...and they stay firm all day.  If you forget to thaw the minnows in advance, just leave them outside of your cooler on the way to the lake.  The ones on the outside will be thawed enough to peel off and use when you get there...and as soon as the others begin thawing well, plunk them in the cooler.  Some minnow fans prefer to leave their minnows frozen and then cut them up while still hard.  For softer fleshed minnows that insures good clean cuts without smashing.

CUT BAIT:  I use fish flesh from carp, perch and white bass.  I fillet and skin the carp first.  Carp meat is tough.  You don't need the skin to hold it on the hook...and it is tough to remove from the hook.  I usually scale perch before filleting and freezing.  Once the scales have frozen and dried they are like armor...tough to put the hook through.  But I do leave the skin on and it helps keep the bait on the hook longer.  White bass?  I freeze small ones whole...and some large ones too.  I use the small ones whole for bait but the larger ones can be easily scaled and cut up when thawed.  And like perch, their skin helps hold the bait on the  hook.  Some larger white bass I scale and fillet before freezing.  Sometimes I fish a whole fillet.  Other times I cut the fillets into chunks or strips.

A word of advice on prepping cut bait:  Try not to rinse all the blood and flavor out of it before freezing.  Leave it bloody and gooey.  A small amount of water frozen into the package will not dilute the scent enhancement very much.  Just keep the water at a minimum...just enough to allow you to squeeze out all the air bubbles before sealing and putting in the freezer.

And thawed cut bait should be kept just like the minnows on a trip...inside an insulated container...possibly with some synthetic ice gel packs.  I have some sheets of small packs that I cut up and use one, two or more as needed for the bait I am using and the container it will be in.  Those work well for crawlers too.  But as previously suggested, it is wise to wrap them in a paper towel or small cloth to insulate them against direct contact with your prized worms.  Better than melting ice cubes though.

[Kent]

I used to add salt to about 1/2 of my cut bait before freezing. The last few times, I have added salt to all of my cut bait. I have found if I add a liberal amount of salt the cut bait never freezes solid, even at zero degrees. I can use it without thawing it at all (although it isn't frozen solid it can still be extremely cold on bare fingers - so be careful). With it being salted it is a little firmer and the fish seem to like it as well and sometimes better than unsalted bait.

[Mildog]

Here is a tip I learned from an Excellent Walley Angler that was a co-worker of mine at the fishing store we both worked at.
This will sound crazy, but try it and you will be amazed at how well it works.
Take the crawlers you think you will need for your outing and remove them from the bedding and or container they were stored or purchased in. Then, its best to use an insulated beverage type container or similar to that. Place a couple cups of water and plenty of ice cubes or crushed ice in to the container. You will want PLENTY OF ICE in the water. Then place the crawlers into the container in the ice water bath. Add ice as needed through the day if it is melting away. NEVER LET THEM SIT IN WARM WATER. The crawlers will firm and plump and will stay great all day, as long as there is plenty of ice in the water mixture and they don't get warm. You want them Icy cold and wet. If No water, Just ice they will freeze. Many times at the end of the day I will remove any WHOLE leftover crawlers and place them back in bedding in the container and put them in the fridge. My wife isn't too thrilled but she tolerates it, and she can attest they will keep for several months. (done it many times)Just check every couple of weeks, shake them up a bit and add just a few drops of water if needed and turn the container over for a few days. You do not want the bedding to get too wet, they will die. Not a pleasant thing to have in the fridge. LOL
Sounds crazy but it works awesome. and much nicer to handle the worms without bedding or dirt getting all over Boat, tube hands etc. I have used this method many times over 40 years it works.

TRY IT YOU WILL BE PLEASED WITH THE RESULTS !

The fellow angler that taught me this was Greg Jonas. Some of you may remember him, I think Pat Tube Dude will. Sadly he passed away one morning when he tried to swim out to retrieve his boat.
It was an early morning after a night excursion chasing walleye at Deer Creek, his boat had drifted away as he went to get his truck to trailer his boat. He drowned in less than 10 feet of water not far from the ramp.
The reason I mention this is two fold, one is to remember and pay tribute to a great guy and angler and Two, WARN OTHERS. Never try to swim after your boat with out a life jacket. Your boat is not worth your life. I had another friend do this once and he just barely made it and came close to drowning, when he reached his boat he was too weak to climb in. On what he figures was his last attempt before he succumbed to hypothermia he made it in and took several hours to recover but luckily he survived. Fortunately he was wearing a life jacket it almost certainly saved his life.
Tight lines
Mildog

[TubeDude]

Here is a tip I learned from an Excellent Walley Angler that was a co-worker of mine at the fishing store we both worked at.
This will sound crazy, but try it and you will be amazed at how well it works.
Take the crawlers you think you will need for your outing and remove them from the bedding and or container they were stored or purchased in. Then, its best to use an insulated beverage type container or similar to that. Place a couple cups of water and plenty of ice cubes or crushed ice in to the container. You will want PLENTY OF ICE in the water. Then place the crawlers into the container in the ice water bath. Add ice as needed through the day if it is melting away. NEVER LET THEM SIT IN WARM WATER. The crawlers will firm and plump and will stay great all day, as long as there is plenty of ice in the water mixture and they don't get warm. You want them Icy cold and wet. If No water, Just ice they will freeze. Many times at the end of the day I will remove any WHOLE leftover crawlers and place them back in bedding in the container and put them in the fridge. My wife isn't too thrilled but she tolerates it, and she can attest they will keep for several months. (done it many times)Just check every couple of weeks, shake them up a bit and add just a few drops of water if needed and turn the container over for a few days. You do not want the bedding to get too wet, they will die. Not a pleasant thing to have in the fridge. LOL
Sounds crazy but it works awesome. and much nicer to handle the worms without bedding or dirt getting all over Boat, tube hands etc. I have used this method many times over 40 years it works.

TRY IT YOU WILL BE PLEASED WITH THE RESULTS !

The fellow angler that taught me this was Greg Jonas. Some of you may remember him, I think Pat Tube Dude will. Sadly he passed away one morning when he tried to swim out to retrieve his boat.
It was an early morning after a night excursion chasing walleye at Deer Creek, his boat had drifted away as he went to get his truck to trailer his boat. He drowned in less than 10 feet of water not far from the ramp.
The reason I mention this is two fold, one is to remember and pay tribute to a great guy and angler and Two, WARN OTHERS. Never try to swim after your boat with out a life jacket. Your boat is not worth your life. I had another friend do this once and he just barely made it and came close to drowning, when he reached his boat he was too weak to climb in. On what he figures was his last attempt before he succumbed to hypothermia he made it in and took several hours to recover but luckily he survived. Fortunately he was wearing a life jacket it almost certainly saved his life.
Tight lines
Mildog

There are still a few of us who fondly remember Greg.  Here is a picture of him holding a nice brown caught through the ice at Deer Creek...the first winter it was open to ice fishing...perch only.

[Cowboypirate]

Great posts- thanks for all the info and ideas

[Anglinarcher]

SMART idea, one I should have thought about, and am extremely embarrassed I didn't.  I use to collect and sell worms to supplement our merger income when first married.  I had a spot in a public park that was flood irrigated.  The worms would come up in hordes into the cool water pools, then go down once the water sank in.  

Once collected, we put the worms on newspaper to let them drip, then put them in bedding where they were just fine.

I probably never made the connection because the water was not "cold" enough.  The worms did not plump or toughen, that took a couple of days in bedding, so maybe if the water had been colder, ice water.

Talking about toughing up crawlers, I have one for you, well two.  Standard bedding will allow worms to soften up.  If you put a single tablespoon of find sand into a dozen count container of commercial worms, about 24 hours in advance, their movement through the bedding will normally firm them up as if they had been exercising for months.  LOL  If the worms are kept on their cool side, it takes longer because they are not moving as much.

The second is replacing the bedding with the moss type bedding -  Not peat moss, not paper or dirt, but the fibrous type bedding that is getting hard to find and is never labeled as such on the bag.  I have found it sold as Sphagnum Moss and also found it as florist moss and at some nurseries for mulch.

[Mildog]

I also started my sporting goods career catching worms ! The place I lived when I was in High School was loaded with crawlers all I had to do was flood the lawns and they would come up. I used to joke I made a mistake not staying in the bait business !! (seriously) Once I got a call from the shop I ended up working for and even became a part owner of (that's another long story) the shop was in a crisis and needed crawlers very badly. I asked him how many and he said I will take whatever you can bring me. Since I knew all my neighbors and mowed their lawns and had permission, I was good to go. I set out a few hoses had a bit to eat and then proceeded to collect as many crawlers as I could in an hour. I had a container that would hold 100 crawlers so I could count them quickly. I ended up with 2000 plus crawlers. I rounded it down to to even 2000 to be sure I was not shorting them. I rushed down and delivered the crawlers and got $29 bucks per 1000 back them so I made $58 bucks in about an hour of work!!!!! I don't think I have ever equaled that since LOL. That was a lot of money back then ( I think I started at the shop for 3 bucks an hour, thank goodness I supplemented my income for few more years with the crawlers) ! I got an interrogation from store owner when I brought them in, on how did I get so many crawlers so fast and they better not be electric shocked and die on them. I told him that was my secret but I guaranteed they were not shocked and they would be fine when packaged into bedding and kept cold.
I ended up working at the store for 25 years ! I started at the bottom. I built a bedding box to store crawlers in and also packaged as well as worked the floor helping customers. Back then used to use Buss Bedding not sure it is even made anymore, I think it was made from ground up recycled newspapers. It kept worms great if they were kept cool, and so much less mess than the dirt they are usually packed in.
One other interesting note. People think worms drown, and that's why they come up when flooded. I don't think so. I think they come up because the wet ground being compressed around them. Not sure but that's my theory. As far as not drowning, here is some info on that.
We had a large fish tank at teh shop, one of my jobs was to clean it periodically. I used to find crawlers in the big filter container batting that we used every tiem I cleaned out the tank, as they would occasionally get sucked into the filter before the fish got them. They were alive and well and got to try another shot at evading the hungry tank fish. One of our owners had a smaller tank in his office with some game fish in ( back then it was easier to get a permit to have game fish. He had a couple bass and a crappie. He added a green sunfish and it eventually killed every fish in the tank by biting fins and scales off them. ( Green Sunfish are very aggressive fish ) He also eventually died. Well the tank sat there empty but with the filter and aerator still running for a few weeks. One day he noticed some thing moving and checked it out it was a couple crawlers that were still living in the gravel bottom of the tank. So I assume they were getting enough oxygen from the water.???
I have fond memories from the old days at the shop, met so many great people and learned a lot over the years from so many.
That's where I met Tube Dude back in the day and shared many a day on the water chasing finny critters in our tubes. There's a few stories there I can say !!!

Mildog out

---

Here is a tip I learned from an Excellent Walley Angler that was a co-worker of mine at the fishing store we both worked at.
This will sound crazy, but try it and you will be amazed at how well it works.
Take the crawlers you think you will need for your outing and remove them from the bedding and or container they were stored or purchased in. Then, its best to use an insulated beverage type container or similar to that. Place a couple cups of water and plenty of ice cubes or crushed ice in to the container. You will want PLENTY OF ICE in the water. Then place the crawlers into the container in the ice water bath. Add ice as needed through the day if it is melting away. NEVER LET THEM SIT IN WARM WATER. The crawlers will firm and plump and will stay great all day, as long as there is plenty of ice in the water mixture and they don't get warm. You want them Icy cold and wet. If No water, Just ice they will freeze. Many times at the end of the day I will remove any WHOLE leftover crawlers and place them back in bedding in the container and put them in the fridge. My wife isn't too thrilled but she tolerates it, and she can attest they will keep for several months. (done it many times)Just check every couple of weeks, shake them up a bit and add just a few drops of water if needed and turn the container over for a few days. You do not want the bedding to get too wet, they will die. Not a pleasant thing to have in the fridge. LOL
Sounds crazy but it works awesome. and much nicer to handle the worms without bedding or dirt getting all over Boat, tube hands etc. I have used this method many times over 40 years it works.

TRY IT YOU WILL BE PLEASED WITH THE RESULTS !

The fellow angler that taught me this was Greg Jonas. Some of you may remember him, I think Pat Tube Dude will. Sadly he passed away one morning when he tried to swim out to retrieve his boat.
It was an early morning after a night excursion chasing walleye at Deer Creek, his boat had drifted away as he went to get his truck to trailer his boat. He drowned in less than 10 feet of water not far from the ramp.
The reason I mention this is two fold, one is to remember and pay tribute to a great guy and angler and Two, WARN OTHERS. Never try to swim after your boat with out a life jacket. Your boat is not worth your life. I had another friend do this once and he just barely made it and came close to drowning, when he reached his boat he was too weak to climb in. On what he figures was his last attempt before he succumbed to hypothermia he made it in and took several hours to recover but luckily he survived. Fortunately he was wearing a life jacket it almost certainly saved his life.
Tight lines
Mildog

There are still a few of us who fondly remember Greg.  Here is a picture of him holding a nice brown caught through the ice at Deer Creek...the first winter it was open to ice fishing...perch only.


Pat,

Great picture, I was doing some straightening today ( should be fishing) and ran across and old photo album book from the shop, that Bonnie rescued in the final days and gave to me. I was not there when that happened. I found a few pictures of Greg of that Vintage, looked just like that. One with a big Northern, he used to love chasing them in NV lakes that had some trophies back then. Thanks for posting.
Great memories !!
Mildog out

[TubeDude]

Pat,
[quote pid='1105667' dateline='1600801594']

Great picture, I was doing some straightening today ( should be fishing) and ran across and old photo album book from the shop, that Bonnie rescued in the final days and gave to me. I was not there when that happened. I found a few pictures of Greg of that Vintage, looked just like that. One with a big Northern, he used to love chasing them in NV lakes that had some trophies back then. Thanks for posting.
Great memories !!
Mildog out

[/quote]
Yeah, I managed to salvage a few pics from the past...of some of our escapades.  Here are three you might enjoy.


[/url][url=https://geojsonlint.com/]json lint online

[Kent]

One other interesting note. People think worms drown...

Interesting that they can live in water just fine; however, if I get them too wet in those bait tubs (usually with dirt in them) they always die, even though they are kept refrigerated. I wonder what makes the difference?