Salted minnows

[LSfisherman]

Anyone know of a place near minneapolis airport to purchase salted minnows? Heading up to LacSeul next week and thought I would try salted minnows. will have live bait but just wanted to try this also. Any ideas are welcome.

[jigman 2003]

I know you said you wanted to try them, but why waste your time using salted ones when you have live ones? In my experience they work, but nowhere near as well as live ones, and they are rather messy. Just my .02

[LSfisherman]

Main reason to try is size of minnow. Really can't get larger than 1 1/2 " at lake . Wanted to try 2" - 3" to see if larger fish can be caught. Just something different to try. thanks for your input.

[phishfearme]

make your own. do a search on this web board. there's a guy who posted a good salt/borax recipe he uses with rejected dead minnows from alocal bait store. - phish

[mwal]

Vados Bait in Spring Lake Park had sign up saying the had salted minnows. That was back in June. Give them a call. We buy minnnows from them then salt them ourselves using 1/2 pickling salt 1/2 borax. We put inch or so of mixture in 5 gal pail put a dozen or so minnows then inch or 2 of mixture. Let sit for several days until minnows are dehydrated. The trick is not to do very many at a time. If you do to many the salt borax mixture becomes wet and you have very messy bait. We have good luck with these minnows as we have had some problems getting the minnows we wanted in Canada. They were all small.

Mwal

[Lovetofish]

I put live or dead minnows/chubs on a metal screen and let them shake off their water and dry up some. Then I pat them dry with a towel and place them in big baggie with pickeling salt and shake well. After a few hours (I let them set overnight in the fridge) I break them down into smaller baggies with new salt. It doesn't take much salt at this point. Some people add sugar or Borax with the salt, I just never have. Either way, the key I believe is to get them dry first and then put them in new baggies later. You eliminate most of the mess. Then I just keep them cool. I don't freeze them, and I salt them the day before we go. They will keep a good week. This has worked for me for many trips. Brings back memories of the days when we seined our own from the creek. We caught some dandy shinners and chubs!