Salted Minnows

[MinDak Hunter]

I am kinda' cheep and want to salt and borax some minnows to take to Canada. Does anyone have a good recipe? The salted minnows I have used in the past seem to be very soft (is there a trick to making them hold up better?).

[Hookmaster]

Here's all the info about salting minnows I've gotten from previous posts. I've done 1/2 salt and 1/2 borax and they lasted 4 days OK. I haven't tried any others but if I do it will be one with sugar in it. Have at it!!

The borax works good mixed with the salt but if you want to salt them like the bait shops, you have to put the live minnows onto a aerated or bubbed tank with pickling salt (Non-Iodized) until they die and then immediately remove them and put them on a piece of paper to absorb the excess water.

Blot them so they'te not soaking wet but leave a little moisture and then drop them in a container with more of the same kind of salt and shake them up until they're coated .

Leave them out to dry for an hour (not in direct sunlight) and then bag them the way you want. You can freeze them and they'll be nice and firm when thawed. Can't hurt to toss in a couple spoon fulls of borax though.

I make several batches throughout the year and color many of them with food coloring while they're still swimming in the salt water.

I'm guesing you want to know some salting techniques? More than one method prevails. Here's a couple I learned from this forum in years gone by.

Posted by Marc on May 27,1999.-- I use a 5 quart ice cream bucket, one gallon of water and 1 1/2 cups "canning salt"(IMPORTANT)

When returning from a local trip I scoop out the minnows and put them in the brine. Remove after a hour, spread on newspaper to absorb some of the excess water and I store them in old plastic butter containers and keep in the freezer until the trip and then just leave in the boat.

We catch Lake Erie Shiners or Emerald Shiners, same thing. Let them die. Once they stop jumping put iodized salt on them. This will draw more water out of them. I put them on clean newsprint for this. After 20 minutes I'll sprinkle sugar on them. The sugar is a scent and puts a seal on the minnow. It turns liquid and then forms a seal on the minnow. Freeze them now in small margarinne containers. I use them just like this but a friend will put a little salt on them while thawing. The yellow perch sometimes like them better than fresh.

Generally I thing people suggest that you use 1/3 - 1/2 part borrax / salt mixture.

I am going to try the following recipe this weekend that I obtained from Vados Bait in Spring Lake Park, MN @ 763-784-6728 which contains very detailed instructions for a salt / sugar receipe and sounded very convenient:

Take your bait and kill it first by placing in a bucket and throwing salt in the bucket and shaking the bucket around . One of the keys is to start out with live bait as prior dead bait tends to get mushy. Once the minnows are dead after 2 – 3 minutes, gently press out the excess water. If you don’t kill the minnow first they will be flooping all over the place and you can not place them individually in layers of salt / sugar mixture. Instead the minnows will end up touching one another when they are flooping.

Take 5 lb bag of sugar and 5 lb bag of salt mixing it in a 5 gallon bucket 50 / 50. You may want to have a little extra salt for killing the minnows initially. In a second 5 gallon bucket put in a ½” layer of the salt / sugar mix. Put in a layer of recently killed dead minnows making sure the minnows don’t touch one another and or the side of the bucket. Then another layer of salt / sugar mix and another layer of bait. Continue doing this until all your bait is used up. Cover the top layer of bait with a ½” of salt / sugar mix. Let sit in the bucket at room temperature for around 36 - 40 hours. If you leave them in the bucket for up to 72 hours they get very tough. The time you leave them in the mixture depends on what condition you want to fish with the minnows in. The salt draws out the moisture from the bait and the sugar helps keep them from getting brittle.

Take the minnows out of the salt / sugar mixture and place say 20 minnows in a ziplock bag or what ever quantity you are going to want to take out of the freezer periodically. You can add a light shaking of salt to help keep the minnows from sticking together so bad before freezing. Freeze and the minnows should keep indefinitely. When you are fishing sit a package out in the sun and they will thaw out. They keep remarkably well due to the fact that they are preserved.

I make my own salted minnows. Find a bait shop that sells fatheads

by the gallon. Then, put 1/3 cup of salt and 1/3 cups of sugar in a one quart zip lock freezer bag. Shake the bag to mix the salt and sugar. Then, add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of minnows to each quart zip lock bag. Shake the bag to get the salt and sugar to coat the minnows.

Flatten the bags and put all the bags in the freezer in large zip lock.

Then, each day of fishing, take 1-2 bags with you in a cooler for the day's fishing. I have been using this for several years and they work great.