CatHunterSteve

I made a portable “bait tank” for my little boat and thought I would share it with my BOC friends.
I got the 20 gallon plastic can form the local Dollar General store, they were using it to put stock in and stock the shelves but sold it to me for $4.00 since it was used and I really wanted it!
This is pretty much a “cheap” way to keep your bait alive if you don’t have a live well on your boat.

I bought a 500gph live well aerator kit from WalMart (~$28.00), a simple on/off toggle switch (~$2.00) , an in-line fuse holder (~$3.00) and a 2-prong AC plug (~$0.89) like used on a lamp in your house (my boat has an electrical outlet on the front fishing deck that I plug my trolling motor into when I use one) and that works perfect to power the aerator.

I used a 3amp fuse which is what the manufacture of the aerator pump kit recommended, water proofed all electrical connections with “liquid tape”. Attached the “toggle switch” to the rim of the bucket and ran the lead down to the pump.

I sealed the pump and sprayer with silicone so I didn’t have any leaks around them.
I ran the hose around the bucket so the sprayer would be “off center” from the pump and when I installed it I turned the sprayer about 30 degrees so that the spray actually creates “current” inside the bucket and causes the water to constantly revolve around the inside of the bait tank.

The thing works really well keeping my gills alive and I would think it will keep shad alive as well.

I plan on putting a false bottom in of chicken wire to keep the bait from bumping into the pump filter in the bottom of the bucket; they tend to run into it as they swim in the current.

Now for a lesson learned and a testimony as to how tough this pump is:

The first time I used it I used my 12 volt lawn tractor battery to power it but to get to the river I was hauling it in my boat and had the battery in the tank which added a bunch of weight to it and as it was kept it from blowing out of the boat as I was going down the road.

The second time I hauled it in the boat I didn’t have to battery in it and at 70 miles an hour to whole thing blew out of the boat on the road and rolled and hopped all over the road. I went back expecting the thing to be destroyed, well the outer “cap” of the pump was broken off but everything still works perfectly!