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| Taking Care of Live Bait | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 8 2014, 08:32 PM (6 Views) | |
| Eric | Nov 8 2014, 08:32 PM Post #1 |
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Taking Care of Live Bait by BentRod ![]() Keeping bait healthy can be a daunting task if you don't know what you're doing, but it is relatively simple if you follow the right steps. There's no worse feeling than looking in your tank to see all of your bait belly up. We've all been there. To begin with, you will need a round (or oval), filtered, and insulated bait tank with a good aeration system. I recommend either the Creekbank or Super II bait tanks. These are the leaders in the industry, but there are others that will work. A good filtration system is needed to rid the tank of scales and waste matter that will harm your bait. Without a filtration system, ammonia will build up in warmer water and eventually kill your bait. When filling your tank with water, use water that is as close as possible to the surface water temperature your bait is coming from until the water temperatures reach about 70deg. At that point (usually late spring, early summer), you will want to try to keep the water temperatures 70 deg or under. Cool water is key to keeping bait alive, especially in the summer time. In the summer when the water gets hot, I like to use well water to fill my tank, since it is cold, clean, and chlorine free. If you use city water, make sure you use a dechlorinating agent to remove chlorine as it will kill your bait. I use a product called Stress Coat that you can buy in the pet section of Wal-mart. Next, you will need to add salt to your bait tank to help harden the scales of the bait. You can purchase a 40lb bag of water softener salt at places such as Lowes or Home Depot for $4-5. Here’s where I differ slightly from some other live baiters. Most suggest 1 cup of salt per 10gal of water. I like to add at least 1.5cups per 10gal of water, sometimes 2cups. Here’s my reasoning for doing so: more salt turns your baits lighter in color and makes them shiny, therefore stripers can see them easier than they can darker baits in the water. I will also add some shad keeper to help reduce the stress of the bait, lower the ammonia levels, and to help keep my aerator cleaned out so the air bubbles are micro in size. If you catch your bait fresh, which is mostly the case on SML, I often recommend you let shad purge in a holding bucket first. I use a big party drink tub to let them de-slime and rid themselves of that initial waste. For alewives, I usually avoid the purge bucket and dump them straight into my tank. Reason behind this is that alewives are much more sensitive to scale loss and more handling equals more scale loss, especially in the summer months. They also are not as dirty as shad, therefore the biggest concern is getting rid of the scales in your tank that come off the baits. I will check my filter every hour or so after filling the tank with bait to make sure it is clean. This is critical to ensuring that ammonia does not build up in the tank. If you are keeping the bait for extended periods of time, it may be necessary to do a water change every 4-6 hours for the first few days. In the summer time, it is important to keep the water temperature in your bait tank between 60-74; slightly warmer earlier in the summer (still fishing relatively shallow), cooler mid to late summer (fishing deep mostly) is usually what I prefer. Most of the pumps in tanks nowadays suck air in from the outside; therefore, in the summer, those pumps are pulling hot air into your tank and warming the water. If necessary, you can either do partial water changes or add ice to maintain cooler water temperatures. (Again, if your ice has chlorine in it, you will need some type of agent to remove the chlorine.) If you manage your filter and water temperature, you should be able to keep bait for days, possibly even weeks. I will also add some Foam Off every so often to keep the foam down. It is necessary to remove foam or you will greatly reduce the oxygen that the baits are receiving from the surface, which is their main source of oxygen. A lot of people think the aeration systems in the tanks are providing oxygen to the baits. The aeration system is more or less just expelling gases (CO2, etc) from the water to allow the water to hold more oxygen. Most of the oxygen comes from the surface; therefore, it’s critical to keep the foam down. How many baits can I keep in my tank? This is a tricky question that varies by the time of year, size of the bait, etc. In general, you hear, 1 bait per gallon of water. In my 50 gallon tank, I can typically hold 20-25 average size gizzards and about double the number of good size alewives. If I’m just using gizzards in cold water, I can hold up to about 40, unless they're big (12”+) gizzards and then I can hold about 25. Overcrowding your tank is a sure way to kill all of your bait. |
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7:19 PM Jul 10
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7:19 PM Jul 10