preserved minnows for Canada fishing

[swanco]

Has anyone figured out a good way to bring frozen minnows across the borer? A buddy of mine says to put minnows in a bucket of water, and put vinegar in the water, which kills them instantly. Then he puts them in ziploc bags with a littly borax to preserve them and then freezed the minnows.

Does anyone have any other ideas? We're leaving for Canada in two weeks, June 15.

[Hoffer]

Swanco-

hey, this has been discussed a bunch on various threads - everyone has their own recipe on what works. One common one is to use the borax and canning salt and layer the minnows until the dry up. personally, I have tried this and havent had great lucj they tend to stay hard and dont really mimic a dead bait. Some of it depends on how big of bait you are trying to freeze etc...

I usually freeze sucker minnows and simply put them fresh out of the water in a plastic zip lock bag, layer in some canning salt, roll the bag up so the air comes out, zip the lock and throw in the freezer. With the larger minnows I usually only freeze 3 - maybe 4 in a bag at a time. Any mre than that, when they thaw out and you dont use the rest right away they will go bad quickly. Using the other methods - I think they will preserve the minnows so they dont go bad quickly but I have also found they dont mimic a real minnow as well.

Anyway, I am sure you will find another half dozen suggestions - all of which will work well...

[onemore]

We salt them and then put them into ziplock bags and freeze them.

It works really well without alot of fuss.

They un-thaw soft.

We usually do this only with large golden shiners for Northern Pike.

[vikingmeatwad]

does anyone use them for walleye/jig fishing?

[eskay]

We just drain the water and use Borax. Use a liberal amount of Borax and when we get to our destination, we pack the minnows in smaller bags for daily use and keep them in the freezer. We've used them for everything from walleyes to lake trout and they work great.

Or, just use artificials or Gulp. We've pretty much moved away from live bait, and the catches are the same.

And, un-thaw means to freeze. You thaw things out.

[hawghunter001]

Ive been freezing for a long time tried the dry salt etc My Opinion is putting them in a salt brine heavy salt enough that the water wont absorb anymore you will see it laying in the bottom soak them for about 10 hrs drain them let them dry a little and bag them 2doz in a bag ive had them in a small bait cooler all day thawed and they dont get nasty smelly are good and firm and outfish gulp or fake but not as good as live now some dont freeze as well as others the head on a shiner tends to break up a little thats a silver shiner goldees freeze better rainbows are best river chubs do well also sucker have a tendency to get soft but they are better in this brine solution. There are preserved minnows on the market that work well too but to me it seems about the same as gulp

[vikingmeatwad]

Has anyone used the preserved minnows they sell at soem of the outdoor stores.

I saw a big bag of them for like 9 bucks

[hawghunter001]

Yes weve used them they held up and caught fish but I didnt like the scent frozen was catching more fish