Thread: Keeping Minnows Alive and Kicking

I have a onboard pro air in my ranger I use a smaller minnow bucket under the console with one air tube on them and a bigger insulated one I always get my minnows the day before and in the bag put them in a ice chest with a towel over the ice to keep them from freezing up and going into shock I use keep alive the blue stuff in a bucket in the aircon with already cooled water and get the other 2 buckets ready and then just ice them before I leave I usually always have over one lb of minnows and split them up and put them in my boat and never open the one under the console till out in the big bucket they usually stay cool for hours. Yes the minnows are going into warm water from cool but they will last for a few minutes till they die and usually you either catch one or loose the minnow just add ice as needed to keep them cool and the lid on the bucket out of the sun and they will be ok

I discovered something last summer purely by accident that has worked very well for me the majority of the time. I had left my minnow bucket on the boat so I just had a regular white 5gal bucket when I stopped to get my minnows and snacks for the day. With the minnows in the bucket I dropped the bag of ice in with the minnows for the 5 mile drive to the boat. When I got there and took the bag out all but 1 or 2 of the minnows were laying in the bucket like they were dead. I figured my mistake for forgetting the minnow bucket and went on with my day.As i was getting the boat ready to go I noticed more and more of the minnows were "thawing out" and swimming around. Well they all came back from their frozen coma as I called it and stayed alive and spunky until it was their turn on a hook. They also seemed to stay alive better than when I had the minnow bucket and frozen bottles of water to keep them cool. I have used this method several times since and they always seem to last longer than my old regular routine.

This stuff refers to keeping bass alive, but shiners need the same things bass do. Particularly useful is the information about livewell management.

Information here.

During hot weather I keep my minnows in a styrofoam cooler and keep a few ice cubes floating in it with one of those little bubblers going in it. When you buy the minnows they are usually in colder water and when that water warms its a shock to them.