Operating a Minnow Tank

Way more than just buying all the fathead minnows you need

The additives i use are water softener salt, Stress Coat Plus, Ammo Lovk and Foam Off as needed.

quote:

---

It's also handy if you want to buy minnows a day or so before you go so you are not scrambling to get minnows before daylight.

---

I do this with crickets. First off because they are getting hard to find in my area (its a damned shame that a man can't buy a cricket on a whim in the south no more). But the main reason I do it is to fatten 'em up. Slice up a potato in the bottom of the cage and within 24 hours those frickers will be fat as hogs....so fat, in fact, that you can pitch them with a long shank #10 hook in them 50 feet and they will kick around on the surface until something smacks the frick out of them...usually a big old titty bream.....

I have to get my crickets from a damn PetsMart, they measure them out with the same cricket tube as a bait shop but they still charge by them individually, 10 cents a cricket. It's ridiculous.

Fun fact- crickets won't eat heirloom purple potatoes. It's all I had one time, sliced it and dropped it in, they wouldn't touch it. They prefer good old russets from Idaho.

quote:

---

I have to get my crickets from a damn PetsMart, they measure them out with the same cricket tube as a bait shop but they still charge by them individually, 10 cents a cricket. It's ridiculous.

Fun fact- crickets won't eat heirloom purple potatoes. It's all I had one time, sliced it and dropped it in, they wouldn't touch it. They prefer good old russets from Idaho.

---

I had to buy crickets from Pet Smart in Washington State....technically illegal to fish with crickets because using live bait is illegal other than worms. One of many reasons I left the PNW. There are some big old bream in the PNW though...especially anywhere there are pike to keep them in check.

It is crying shame what has become of bait shops in the SE. There are a few places within 20 miles of me that sale crickets but that takes a lot of logistical planning that just ain't in the cards sometimes....one never knows when one may be in dire need of a tube of crickets...forget about buying leaches or wax worms. I am convinced you can trace the decline of society in America directly to the beginning of the end of bait shops that had real cane poles hanging over the door, a minnow tank with several different sized minnows, anything a man might need to entice a fish to go home for dinner and a braggin' board where, if you were lucky, you could show your picture of your big old fish you caught as a kid to your kids...its a damned shame.

I have never tried to feed crickets anything other than Idaho potatoes, but crickets have always struck me as being simple critters with simple tastes, their rubbing their legs together to make music not withstanding they seem about as salt of the earth as a creature gets....not surprising a fancy spud would not be tasty to them....

quote:

---

box of crawlers. I have been forced, from time to time, to have to buy them at WalMart.

---

I have to buy nightcrawlers from walmart at the gun counter for my kid's pet salamander that only eats nightcrawlers. It won't eat worms from the garden. When you get nighcrawlers out of their fridge, you need to open them and inspect. I once bought one without inspecting only to find out it was all dirt no worms. Another time the worms were recently deceased. So by opening the cap and making sure there's worms in there, if they are dead your nose will tell you very quickly. They last a solid 3 weeks in my refrigerator.

Petsmart has changed up their cricket process as of this morning. Instead of waiting around for the fish girl to come over and scoop you out some crickets and then attempt to count them out, they have them pre-bagged and pre-counted in various quantities, in the same little clear bags they give you the fish in, inflated with air and a piece of egg carton. I didn't get a pic of the bag but here are today's leftovers enjoying their last meal. Also, this is what petsmart calls "large". These things are tiny.