Live bait longevity?

[blackhullcharters]

Forget putting Macs in a pen !
With pogies water temp is critical, once the water gets too warm forget them in the pen !
Best bait is blue back herring, but we can't touch them. Back when we could I could keep them most of the summer.

[landlockedsalmon]

For best results,try to build your bait pens with no square corners,rounded corners only.The bait get stuck in corners,and damage there noses.good luck

[sportsman250]

They won't live long in the NR, current forces them into sides of cage. You'd do better setting the cage off the cliffs past the break water with a mushroom anchor and a buoy, or in the harbor.

[Captain Greg Sears]

Keep your round pen in the water and let it grow slime. I have found the more slime on my pen the better they live. 25 years in the North River Pogies Die, Mackerel live a long time, Herring live good to in the river ( ocean herring). Keep a towel or cover over your pen less light less stress same in your baitwell.

Funny thing: sometimes we put baits that have been hooked on the kite back in the pen and they live longer than the ones that did not get a hook.

I think SFC "EJR" Had a couple of Macks in his pen all summer.

Bait sucks to deal with how ever you look at it.

[Col. Kurtz]

I appreciate the feedback guys, thanks.

[EJR]

Greg is correct. I can get macks to live in my pen as long as I wish. In fact I love hearing people say macks dont keep in pens. There have been years I use them for canyon tourney's in August or years like this year where we fished through them and were out by mid july. I load about a 100 in by memorial day at the latest and just use them as we need.

The bigger the pen the better and also the deeper the better. The majority of my baits stick to the bottom half of the pen. I have the ability to sink my pen to a specific depth but have never needed too. If we ever had an abnormally hot summer I would consider sinking it to cooler water. I prefer a round pen. I feel like it trains them that they have to swim in a constant circle where as an oblong shape will allow them to swim straight then circle the corners. To many fish end up swimming into the corners in an oblong pen/livewell.

The only thing I can say is that we treat our baits like our children. Your bait is 90% of the game. We handle them as little as possible and never overload the livewell. There were years in the past were we would make multiple trips back to the dock to unload our baits and then head back out for more.

I do also agree with Greg that I like allowing weed and muscles to grow on the pen. It has never seemed to hurt them and I have good luck so I'm not going to mess with the system.

There are 2 things I would be a bit concerned about it the river. The strong current and the swing in temps as the tides change. My baits stay in the same spot for the entire duration so they are adapting to the temp changes as they occur slowly as the harbor water naturally changes. Hope this is useful but there is only one real way to find out if it works.

[Col. Kurtz]

Greg is correct. I can get macks to live in my pen as long as I wish. In fact I love hearing people say macks dont keep in pens. There have been years I use them for canyon tourney's in August or years like this year where we fished through them and were out by mid july. I load about a 100 in by memorial day at the latest and just use them as we need.

The bigger the pen the better and also the deeper the better. The majority of my baits stick to the bottom half of the pen. I have the ability to sink my pen to a specific depth but have never needed too. If we ever had an abnormally hot summer I would consider sinking it to cooler water. I prefer a round pen. I feel like it trains them that they have to swim in a constant circle where as an oblong shape will allow them to swim straight then circle the corners. To many fish end up swimming into the corners in an oblong pen/livewell.

The only thing I can say is that we treat our baits like our children. Your bait is 90% of the game. We handle them as little as possible and never overload the livewell. There were years in the past were we would make multiple trips back to the dock to unload our baits and then head back out for more.

I do also agree with Greg that I like allowing weed and muscles to grow on the pen. It has never seemed to hurt them and I have good luck so I'm not going to mess with the system.

There are 2 things I would be a bit concerned about it the river. The strong current and the swing in temps as the tides change. My baits stay in the same spot for the entire duration so they are adapting to the temp changes as they occur slowly as the harbor water naturally changes. Hope this is useful but there is only one real way to find out if it works.

Very helpful information, thanks. I have found numerous plans online to build circular pens for <$50 in materials (i.e. less money than I was spending buying a dozen pogies at the dock this season), so why not give it a go? As was suggested earlier in this post, if the macks don't make it in the river, I can always sink the pen somewhere outside of the mouth (and directly on my route out to the Bank).

[EJR]

Very helpful information, thanks. I have found numerous plans online to build circular pens for <$50 in materials (i.e. less money than I was spending buying a dozen pogies at the dock this season), so why not give it a go? As was suggested earlier in this post, if the macks don't make it in the river, I can always sink the pen somewhere outside of the mouth (and directly on my route out to the Bank).

I would love to know the results of sinking a bait pen out in open water. I really wonder if the dogs would destroy it. no way of knowing until you try but that would be an interesting experiment.

[sportsman250]

I sunk a 55 gal plastic drum with a bunch of holes in it out there, the pogs lived for a few days thats the extent of my experiment. They won't last long at all in the river they'll all be capt. red faces in less then a day.

It works for tuna ranching?

[wrap-check]

http://www.saltwatersportsman.com/ga...Bait-Bunkhouse

These are pretty good plans if you want to build your own cage.