Bait for opener

[Fowlmouth]

Has any one heard around if bait shops are going to be having shiners and jumbos on hand or are they hard to come by?

[rcguy]

I stopped by the Cenex Co-op in Buffalo today and they had what they call 'large' leeches. Not very large in my opinion. Hopefully the jumbos will be here soon.

[NEANGLER]

Heard shiners are hard to come by as well as leeches in general.

[Naturboy]

Can anyone tell me what does the water temp have to be for leeches to swim and not ball up?

[tunrevir]

Mikes bait has shiners here in Forest Lake. I believe Frankies in Chisago has them as well.

Tunrevir~

[Great Outdoors]

Has any one heard around if bait shops are going to be having shiners and jumbos on hand or are they hard to come by?

New DNR regulations nave made Shiners very hard to come by, as does water temperature.

The same goes for Leeches, and will only trap and grow as much as temperature allow.

There were not many jumbo leeches available at all last summer after we had a similar winter.

[Great Outdoors]

Can anyone tell me what does the water temp have to be for leeches to swim and not ball up?

Leeches can, and will swim in cold water since they must swim to be trapped.

Even in the summer, leeches will ball up on your hook, but eventually straighten out and swim.

Just give the leech time in cold water, the same thing will happen.

[redneckdan]

I have heard ~50F. Another trick I heard years back is to put some surgical tubing on a jig shank to give the sucker something to suck on. I hear it tends to prevent balling up. No first hand experience either way.

[river rat316]

Like already stated they have to swim to be trapped so it shouldn't be a huge issue unless you are going some place the ice just came off. Jumbos are not going to happen this year, the largest we can get is larges and they are border line with a few nice ones mixed in.

Shiners are also not available yet, unless your bait shop traps their own, they might be here by Friday but that is in doubt, the more the rivers drop and the warmer weather we get this will improve.

[FisH_SLaYer24]

Blue Ribbon Bait and Tackle in Oakdale has Shiners and Jumbo leeches in store.

[Sorgy]

Get over to Blue Ribbon Bait and get your jumbos ASAP. Josh thinks they will be gone by 3:00 pm today. I got my jumbo leeches Get yours before they're

gone.

Good Luck

Steve