Putting your hands in the water kills minnows...
After reading comments about how great the bait coolers are I broke down and bought myself a 19 qt. at Bass pro last weekend. I'm taking it back this week for a refund. I don't really hate it but it's just not my thing! First off one of the pins that hold the latch on has a defect. It was never riveted on and the pin fell out.
I used it for the first time yesterday and put 100 medium minnows in it, put batteries in and the pump wouldn't turn on. I took the batteries out and turned the little pimp by hand a few times and then it worked ok after that although it was a little noisy to suit me. What I disliked the most was it takes 2 hands to get a minnow out. One to lift the basket and the other to pick up the minnow. When I'm baiting up I usually have my hook in one hand and can dip up a minnow, set my net on top of bucket, and retrieve a minnow with the other hand. I ended up taking the mesh basket out and just used hand net.
I had maybe 30 minnows left over and brought them home late yesterday evening. Left the pump running all night. It's still running but probably 30% of the remaining minnows are dead.
Going to get my money back and buy a good 12v minnow pump and a good plastic cooler. I can keep my minnows in the cooler and just dip out a dozen or so to put in my little minnow bucket as needed.
Beuxdock, footballcoach LIKED above post
You will like the 12v pump, I mounted mine near the transom tucked away. It's wired to the cranking battery with a toggle switch, then ran 2 aquarium hoses. First hose drops at the console second hose drops at the bow. I just use an insulated 5 gallon bucket with a yellow store bought bait lid and keep a length of hose and air stone in it. I couldn't stand the noise those disposable battery pumps make, don't even notice it now.
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Fred, I have the Marine Metals 12 volt 2 outlet pump on my boat. Have one lead split with a T and throttling valve. One runs to small bucket next to me and other goes to 5 gal bucket with bucket liner for majority of minors. I then ran second outlet around and into my livewell with large round air stone. It helps everything good. Had it around 6 years. Couple years ago one side of pump quit working. Called them trying to buy pump. Took my address and next day I had new internal pump and air stone at no cost.