I have been reading quite a bit on here regarding salting fish for bait. I may have missed it in the archives, but how would that work for ground or finely chopped fish? Everything I have found was using big chunks or whole fish. My end goal is a dp bait that I can just scoop a spoonful into the trap. I’m sure I will get some reply’s about why I don’t just use other baits like cat food, marshmallows, etc, but after several seasons, I am stuck on using fish in most of my dogproofs. I’ve just had too good of success with fish in the past, but I want something that won’t freeze in the trap and is simple to get into the trap.

Would the salt be too hard on the traps? If so, is there a alternative preservative that won’t? I’d also like to use the bait some for K9s, as a change up.

salted ground fish will rust your trap if left in very long. you need to wash them out good for storage. at about 17 degrees f it will also freeze. nothing is perfect.

cheerios are cheaper by volume than cat food if you buy the generic bags. put some good SUN RENDERED fish oil in it. That pressed stuff is worthless IMO. Save the ground fish for dirt holes or whatever.

Mix glycerin with your ground fish then add anise or sweetcorn oil or whatever you prefer. I kept mine in the freezer. It still dries out in a couple days though,

I've had great luck mixing dried cat food (get off brand and cheap at dollar general) with a few cans of sardines packed in oil and mashed up. Add a generous amount of molasses to this and put it in anlarge plastic container with a lid. Give that a shake every other day or so and I make mine in summer. By late november the dried catfood has absorbed everything I mixed in and I've kept it over for couple seasons in a row, no preservatives or anti freeze needed. The molasses and fish oil seem to work together somehow with dried cat food. I have two gallons going right now in my garage for this winter for my DPs. I bought everything at dollar general or clearance racks and I'm quite confident I didn't spend $10 on all of that to make 2 gallons.
Hammered coon last year in rain, freezing conditions, snow, etc. Its a great DP bait for me that I liked enough to double the batch this season.
Jim

Jim, add a bit of red fox urine to some and see the difference. Here I seem to get the big males in the stuff that has the urine in it. Honey helps too.


Salt is not a good thing with steel.. in any form.

Thanks guys. Does glycerin have corrosive tendencies, like salt? I could store it in the freezer like tbn mentioned. Maybe I will end up just using a small amount of ground fish mixed with cat food, like the concoctions several of you have mentioned.

glycerin is not a preservative. if you don't add salt to your fish and want to use it fresh you will have to store it in a freezer.

glycerin will not rust steel

Ok, thanks Danny.

I didn't intend to say glycerin is a preservative but rather that is how I used ground fish when I ran a lot of Dp's.

^^what he said, SALT preserves fish very well and cheap

Glycerin will retard aging depending upon the amount used in volume to that material it is blended with. It is a good anti freeze, thickening and blending agent for lures and baits.

Did Johnny Thorpe say that !

heavy dose of salt and corn oil is my go to

A glycerin sb mixture on fish. if you want a harder odor use course sb, sit in sun for a few weeks. if you want a lighter odor, use powder sb and keep in a cool dark area for at least a few weeks. For fish, I go a little bit heavy with the sb. I find the more liquid/ oil the fish is sitting in the faster the sb gets to work. For me, I preserve and let sit a year, but have used it as soon as it stops.

I just caught a 5 gallon bucket of gizzard shad (using my cast net) and used a combination of SB powder and salt to preserve them fresh. The shad will turn to mush, but coon and mink seem to like them in any form they come in. I broke the quantities down into one gallon pickle jars to make stirring easier. So far so good.

If you salt those shad well they wont break down if you keep them in a cooler storage area.

shad are an okay coyote bait and real good cat bait

I have caught every fur bearer on fish type products.

Its not much cooler, but I store all my baits and lures in the root cellar below my trap shed. I would have put them in the frig, but its not big enough. I mixed the salt and SB at the same time to avoid crushing the shad anymore than necessary. Don't know if this matters or not, but the shad were spawning and got there associated goo in the bucket as well. Would this help or hinder the fish?

I don't know wormbobsky, I have always just ran them whole through a meat grinder right off. Don't see how leaving them whole with spawning smell could hurt anything. Coons bobcats and coyotes like em ground up I know. I bet whole is just as good.

I have limited experience with shad, but the ones I had before turned to mush after I thawed them out. I laid them out flat in gallon zip lock bags and froze them like that. When I would thaw them when ready to use they couldn't even be removed from bag without falling apart. That is why I just left them whole and mixed in the SB and salt. Once the SB has taken full affect I will jar them up in pint containers to use on the line. Figure a little glycol wouldn't hurt to freeze proof, but salt should have that covered unless it get real cold and coon won't be traveling much anyway.

If all you are going to use is salt and sb (depending on type of material), you will end up with a chunky rubbery (solidified) bait after it sets a while without treating it and it will defeat the purpose of what you're trying to do.

Jim do you mix everything together then put in sun?
2 cans of sardines to a 1 pd cat food ? How much molasses r u putting in? Thanks

What is SB?

Sodium benzoate, it's a preservative

Not in sun...in my cool shady garage.