Better yet don't mess with the minnows and buy a pack of tube jigs and some jig heads.

Ain’t that the truth, Lake Audubon had roads plowed on it but not now. I don’t know where your picture was taken but it screams “the Valley”.

they sell them by the dozen around here.
Most places don't count them out tho.
If you ask for a dozen you'll usually end up with 2 doz or more.
This is for smaller minnows and med sized ones.
Larger minnows they will count roughly and you'll end up with a couple more than you want.

Bad thing is the vast majority of places are like this.
But one or two will count out every single minnow giving you exactly what you asked for.
So then you have to but 2-3 dozen.

you learn to avoid those places.

I stopped using bait yeas ago. Mainly to avoid the time and extra work of carting around more stuff.
When fishing for some species its tougher without bait, others like trout its actually easier without the hassle of messing with live bait.

I have a rock bottom creek right below my house, it doesn't have a continuous flow of water, just pockets of water here and there. But in the summer there some pockets that hold a lot of minnows.

What would be a good way to trap them? In the past I have just netted them out with a long handled net, but that can get time consuming to try and get enough.

Smelt are 1.00 each up here

My friend Leroy and I used to go through huge numbers of minnows during the May white bass runs at CJ Brown Lake. We quickly learned which bait shop workers to get to fish out the minnows. One girl, who we avoided, counted out 2 dozen minnows one at a time from the dip net. One guy, at the bait shop, would put well over 40 minnows in our buckets if we bought 2 dozen. We each used 2 minnow buckets.

Keith

About $15 a pound here for shiners or rosie reds.

Price has sure went up

Dont even think about buying them in Wy I fished a lake in the middle of the state and good luck finding them and when you did it was 14 bucks a dozen and they count them. Very few lakes you can fish with live minnows though.

I don't know. We just call them shiners. I believe the bait stores buy them from people that raise them. I would love to learn how to catch the blue herring minnows out of the lake we fish. That is the main forage for the game fish now. That and shad. Shad are hard to keep alive though.

Bought a lb of shiners a year ago. Then later conditions were right and I caught a
bunch of wild shiners.
Today I have 8 of those left.
Two things I learned.
Do not over feed.
If not using conditioner, add a pinch of iodized salt to the tank.

The round minnow traps with a inverted cone on each end. Most are under $15
Go to Sheels, fish USA, or any other online sporting goods store and look up minnow traps if you don't have a bait store close by. Our local Walmart also sells them. Leave in overnight and next day they'll be in it.

i bait minnow traps with a little bread

Easy enough , been doing it for years. Native minnows are better. The fish are more familiar with them than some store bought shiners. Also more lively and less chance of introducing something unwanted in your local body of water. Bought this trap years ago , was originally galvanized , painted it black to blend in better. Catches crayfish too for bait.

About anything will work for bait

Crappie minnows here are around $4.50 a scoop and redtail chubs which are hard to get and really in demand in the summer for Walleye, sell for up to $15.00 a dozen. The big spearing decoy sized sucker minnows that I sometimes use on tip ups sell for up to $3.00 apiece. As a result of these prices, I have used artificials a lot more....especially on Walleyes.

I wish Wisconsin allowed a person to trap minnows effectively. We are not allowd to remove minnows from a body of water where they are caught, unless they are killed first.

Minnows here, in my neck of the woods are around 5-5 bucks a dozen last I knew… I have not bought any in years,,, I build my own minnow traps and catch minnows and creek chubs.

To many regulations here Wy. permits required and only certain minnows allowed just not worth it.