Tip # 37 – What to do with dead minnows
What to do with your leftover minnows
It usually happens that when you go ice fishing you end up with some minnows left over. Keeping them alive until your next trip can be quite a challenge unless you have the proper setup. If you have a cool place like a shed or garage and a bubbler or pump you may be able to keep them for a while. Make sure you do not feed them if you want them to last. Even with these things they will likely die off quickly. There are other options for keeping minnows to use on future trips.
What ever you do, DO NOT LET THEM GO INTO THE LAKE YOU ARE FISHING.
It could end up that you are spreading diseases or allowing an invasive species into an ecosystem by releasing them.
I like to take my leftover minnows and cure them. This can be done by taking dead minnows and putting them in a tray with salt. There are lots of recipes for curing minnows but I find regular table salt work fine. Some recipes say to use non iodized salt or kosher salt. Once I’ve salted the dead minnows and they have dried for a few hours, I put them in a container and keep them in the freezer.
The salted minnows work just as well as live ones for many types of panfish, or to use on a lure to give it extra appeal. Sometimes if I have both live and salted minnows I will use the salted minnows to chum the hole.
It’ll soon be time to forget about ice fishing in these parts.