Keeping Minnows?

[Travis C.]

I am going to Dale Hollow this weekend and want to take some creek minnows for Saturday night. Today is my only day to get out and catch some.

I have a cooler or minnow buckets and an aquarium aerator but never have used them to keep bait alive.

Would that work to keep them alive until this weekend?

[pondexter]

Better check with TWRA restrictions on using creek minnows , they can only come from watershed where you are fishing!

I have found the inexpensive "air bubbles" aerators work great and take an extra bucket of water to change water after a couple of hours. I typicaly leave minnows in a bucket where I caught them until I am ready to go fishing then put them in a large bucket with aerator and go!

[CreekWalker]

I'd be curious about the rule taking minnows to dale hollow. Surely it's okay as creek minnows are in every watershed in the area?

As for keeping the minnows be sure to keep changing the water out every few hours if possible but they should make it a half day or so in the original bucket water. Careful not to keep them on a 12v aerator constantly for more than a half day. That infusion of pure dissolved oxygen to minnows is like cocaine and nitrous mixed with steroids and red bull - they'll work so hard constantly trying to jump out of the bucket they'll eventually tire out and die.