Need minnows?

[Lovok]

Scylla has yet again, thrown me a curve ball, and changed her food preferences. Gods, some days I think I should just rename her "Morris", and to hell with the gender/name conflict! LOL At any rate, I've decided to give minnows a try on her, and I found this article on how to make your own minnow trap, and thought it might be useful to some of the other newbies here. I'm putting mine together today, and I sure hope the little snot doesn't turn up her nose at wiggling, flipping, tasty minnies. Just remember, collect your fish from a trusted water source!

http://boyslife.org/hobbies-projects/projects/69/make-your-own-minnow-trap/

[Stefan-A]

I made one of those as a kid. Didn't catch anything, except algae.

I recommend forgetting about the water bottle design and either scale it up, or get a gillnet or a lift net instead. Or a small seine net.

[infernalis]

I have the best results with a lift net ("Umbrella net") If a large crayfish or water snake gets in the trap its a disaster also.

[Lovok]

Neither of those methods are practical for my circumstance, unfortunately, or I'd have used those. It's a small creek, so the gill net won't really work (and I don't have the patience to make that kind of contraption), and the umbrella net will be too unwieldy. By the time I got it out where the fish are, they'd have long since gone into hiding. Where I'm doing this, it's gotta be kinda low-tech.

I'll let you know if this turns out to be the crappy idea it's sounding to be. Looked like a good idea in theory.

[Tyrel26]

I actually made a large minnow trap from a square pail, some fly mesh, etc...all in all it cost me less than $2.00 to make lol; and that was for the mesh but one could also just get an old fly screen and reuse the mesh, thus a free trap.

I have been considering making a post of the building process as i have pics of the steps. So if anyone is interested in seeing how I made my trap just let me know, also it took less than an hour to make.

Thanks for reading
Tyrel

[Lovok]

I actually made a large minnow trap from a square pail, some fly mesh, etc...all in all it cost me less than $2.00 to make lol; and that was for the mesh but one could also just get an old fly screen and reuse the mesh, thus a free trap.

I have been considering making a post of the building process as i have pics of the steps. So if anyone is interested in seeing how I made my trap just let me know, also it took less than an hour to make.

Thanks for reading
Tyrel

Tyrel-
Most definitely I'd be interested! I've already got the square bucket, and the price is certainly right ;) Let me know if/when you post your instructions. I'm pretty sure it'd be something more people than myself would find useful. :)

[bkhuff1s]

I'd advise designed one that has access to air. My friend uses one to catch fish bait, and informed me this week that he did catch snake in it. Unfortunately by the time he got to it, it was dead.

[Tyrel26]

mine is about 12x12x30 ish, i just set it in shallow enough water to have an air pocket inside or a small pop bottle inside will keep it floating. Ill make a thread about it later

[Lovok]

The bottle trap worked! I baited it with some pieces of bread, left it overnight, and when I checked it this morning, I had 6 nice-sized minnows in it. Scylla has already eaten two of them, and I put the rest in her biggest water pond so she can pick them off later at her leisure.

Tyrel's post "Minnow Trap" is going to work even better I suspect (THANK YOU again for that!!), In the meantime, for anyone who's curious about the bottle trap, it works! Just don't expect a big haul from it. ;)

[Dragonfiremule]

I made one of these for a school project a couple years ago. :P Thanks for the reminder.

[Mommy2many]

Here's my minnow trap:

Take 3 kids, any age will do.
One large bucket or pail.
A few fish nets, butterfly nets and or screen for windows.
Set loose in small creek where minnows are know to frequent.
Check back in 1/2 hour.

Usually produces a couple dozen dace minnows:D

[Tyrel26]

QUOTE:Here's my minnow trap:

Take 3 kids, any age will do.
One large bucket or pail.
A few fish nets, butterfly nets and or screen for windows.
Set loose in small creek where minnows are know to frequent.
Check back in 1/2 hour.

Usually produces a couple dozen dace minnows:D"



And if you are in a hurry, just add sugar!

[Mommy2many]

If you add sugar to the recipe, you may want to extend the time a bit! May produce more minnows!!!