Threadfin Shad

[waxnslabs]

Anyone ever had any luck catching and keeping these for a period of time. I buy minnows in bulk and keep in a 100 gallon aerated tank, just curious to know if these would produce fish even better.

W

[jayhawkcrappie]

By period of time do you mean days, weeks or months? With a great bait tank set up, to include added salt, oxygen and the right temperatures, you may keep bait lively for 24-48 hours. Anything past that you would need a tank with a true filtration system such as those used for aquariums to address the nitrification process. Even then I would think they would still die from stress. There is a striper guide on Lake Texoma named James Allen. Nickname is shad cologne if that tells you anything. I fished with him several times and he always has the best and liveliest shad. He posted a video on youtube of how to keep shad alive and in good shape. Here is the link. How to keep bait alive video one of two how I do it series - YouTube. A really good 30 gallon shad bait tank will run $500-$600.

[waxnslabs]

Thanks for the link. I have a 100 gallon tank, and paid about 600.00 for everything from my carbon filtration system to my 40hp aerator. I've read in order to keep shad you must have a perfectly round tank or else they will get in corners and kill each other from crowding. I guess only time will tell.

[jigflinger]

That's an awesome aerator. Good luck on keeping shad alive.

[TreednNC]

homemade bait tank and alive indefinitely as long as I change the filter....ehh if you "shop"/bum around, you can build a decent one for the price of a bildge pump +$15-20

[cricket george]

I use a 55 gallon barrel and a 110v or 12v aerator depending where I am and it works fine. $20.00 covers barrel purchase and hardware.