Answers
How can i make a minnow trap to catch medieum and large minnows?
I would say dont make one, just buy it for 6 bucks. If you have to make one here is how:
How To Make A Minnow Trap
If you are ever in the mood to go fishing but do not want to pay for minnows, you can make a minnow trap quickly and easily. Below are two different ways you can make simple yet effective minnow traps.
To make the first type you will need:
A large piece of screen wire or hardware cloth.
Some thin cord or wire.
An ice pick.
A few fishing sinkers.
First, roll the hardware cloth into a cone shape and cut it to the size you want. Then use the thin cord or wire to tie it closed down the side. You may have to use your ice pick to enlarge the holes to get the cord through the screen. Next, weigh down the pointed end of the cone with a few fishing sinkers. Now tie a piece of durable string or cord to each side of the open end of the trap, then you can fasten a line to that cord for throwing and dragging the trap through the water to collect minnows.
Our second type will be a tad more sophisticated. For it you will need:
Two 3-liter (or 2-liter) soda bottles.
One large nail (6-penny if possible).
Some string or twine.
Scissors and locking pliers such as vise-grips.
Your kitchen stove.
A marker.
A bowl of cold water.
This minnow trap will be made from two plastic bottles. To follow the instructions easier, you will need to mark one bottle with an ‘X’ and the other with a ‘Y’. Cut the bottom third portion off of the X bottle but leave the cap on. Then cut off the top third portion of the Y bottle and take its cap off (leaving about a half inch lip underneath the part before the Y bottle curves). We will be keeping the top portions of both bottles and throwing the other parts away. Now place bottle Y inside of bottle X with both cap parts pointing in the same direction. After doing this you will be able to see how the minnows will be able to swim into the trap but then have a tough time finding their way out.
Now we need to fasten the bottles together at the bottom. Go to your kitchen stove and turn on a burner. Take hold of the nail with the pliers and heat it over the burner until it is very hot. Hold the two bottles firmly and with the hot nail still in the pliers, poke about a dozen holes around the bottom part of your trap where both bottles are touching. When finished, drop the hot nail into the bowl of cold water. Next, take your string and sew through the holes – or make little ties of cord – around the bottom to secure the bottles together. Now reheat the nail and poke more holes around the outside of bottle X to allow water to get in the trap when you throw it into the lake.
For minnow bait, you can add crunched up crackers or bread to your trap, or even dog or cat food. Fasten a line to it and throw it in your favorite lake and wait overnight for the minnows to fill it up. The next morning you can simply open the cap on top of the trap and dump the minnows into a bucket and then you will be ready for fishing.
And there you have two simple and easy to make minnow traps that will be effective for providing you with all the bait you need for your next fishing venture.
(Be aware that in some places fish traps of any kind are illegal. Check the fishing regulations in your area before using any minnow or fish traps.)
I am looking at trapping some minnows for an aquarium.
http://www.boyslife.org/workshop/minnows.pdf
I would suggest making several of them however.
A
i am planing to make a minnow trap out of bottles and if i do catch some...how do i keep them alive without dieing when i put them in a bucket....i want to take them home...
I ALSO WANT TO KNOW CAN I CHANGE THE WATER OF MINNOWS OR HAVE TO USE THE WATER THEY WERE ALREADY LIVED IN...
please help me and thx!
Lack of oxygen will kill fish. If you leave them in a bowl with the same water eventually it will run out of oxygen and the fish will die. Why goldfish survive in bowls, I do not know, but most other fish will die. If you're transporting the minnows, I find that a insulated "cooler" will help keep them alive longer. You'll need some kind of aeration system to add oxygen to the tank if you plan to keep them. Aquarium stores have little aeroators/bubblers that add oxygen to the water. Filter systems do the same thing.
If you're going to transfer the fish to a tank, then add a little bit of aquarium water to the pail with the fish and the pond water. After a few minutes add a little more. If the pail holds 1/2 gallon of water then add about 1/2 cup of aquarium water to the pond water every five minutes for about 1/2 to one hour. That will allow the fish to slowly adjust to the water temperature and chemical content of your aquarium water.
How should I bait my trap? I was thinking dead fish, but I've tried that before and all I end up with is crawfish and creek chubs.
if you didn't want to catch baby catfish, you would need a BIG minnow trap.
for bait, you could use soy bean cake ( soy bean meal, pressed into cake form ),
years ago, used that, when trapping channel catfish, in southern Florida
Also any good homemade minnow trap idears...much abliged.
As kids, we always used a large piece of window screen. Made a large tube out of it and capped the ends with coned pieces of the screen with the tip cut off. If you laid it on its side and looked at it above, it would like something like this.
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We would tie it to a bit of cord and put a couple of rocks in it to weigh it down. One of the ends was fixed so we could take it out easy enough. We would fill the trap with dry dog food and put it the river in some shallow but moving water. The water should flow from one end to the other and not across the middle. The dog food would get soggy and attract the minnows. they would find the ends and swim into them easy enough but had a hard time figuring out how to get out of them. We would pull the trap out every now and then and empty it into our minnow bucket or just take out what we needed for bait.
It worked fair. Fair enough for a couple of kids with nothing better to do. I think you can buy better minnow traps at the store.
What do i put in my minnow trap??
pieces of raw potato or cat food in a plastic bag with holes in it. the more minnows that are in there, the more minnows will go get in your trap to investigate, so leave it out overnight, but make sure no one steals it, its happened to me before
News
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