I have minnow buckets, the floating kind that I’ve drilled holes in so they sit on the bottom.
They have strong spring loaded doors.
Anytime I leave sucker minnows and fatheads in them overnight they are gone, no trace.
What am I dealing with?

Turtles would be my guess buddy.

Human

Otter?

So we have this narrowed down to people, turtles or otter. No need to thank us.

Not saying it's aliens,...but it's aliens...

How deep are they? If they are less than 2 feet, I would guess racoon.

Is the lid open and is the trap still standing up on bottom???

Acid Rain.

Buckets are 4’ deep. My guess is turtles push open the door and most all of the minnows escape.

I agree, likely a big snapper. If it were to get "stuck" like a mink would with the lid closing, as soon as it retracts it's head into the shell it is free. Take a piece of snare cable, a big treble hook and a chunk of meat and see what is on it in the morning.

With buckets that deep, why not float it so the lid is at the surface?,
When I was minnow fishing, all storage cars were floaters, if they were sunk to the bottom, the minnows would die from lack of oxygen at low tide.

Hahaha

I used to have a wretched time with turtles in leech traps. I can`t see why they couldn`t do the same in the minnow bucket. Wire that door closed maybe until your ready to use.

This was my first thought.

If you "childproof" the bucket with wire, Tim would never get to see his Snoopy bobber stand up again.

Lol!!!

I have had turtles get the head caught in those funnel traps and can't pull their head back through that wire screen. I'm with 160 turtles are the most likely thief.

Bigfoot or his cousin the skunk ape. Depends on where u r at.

That would be my guess too. Most likely otter. Spring loaded doors aren't going to stop an otter. I had a similar problem up at the lake one summer.

Otters do that here.