Carver, I am not sure it is legal to trap minnows any more. I know that with the zebra mussel
problem you now have to have a receipt if a game warden checks you.
Johnny
Good point, Yes you can still trap them fine, especially for day use in the body of water you catch them in, but you cannot transport them in water from the lake in your vehicle. If you do not have a receipt with you you need to be able to show the game warden your trap. If you get a cranky game warden anything might go. I went to Austin early last year for a clarification on a poorly worded statute for an article I was penning about the issue. It did not do a lot of good. SO, I also keep a receipt from Dunn fish farms for the bulk minnows I have purchased in the past. there is no date requirement on your receipt.
I generally know in advance when I hope to be bringing some home and take a 5 of "seasoned" and blue water with me. One glance and smell of the water and they know it is not lake water.
I was checked one time last year, but it was by a game warden that knew me pretty well and I could still show him the leftover treated water in my Jerry can. Since he saw me almost daily for a while he knew I had a bait-well in my yak that has an "O" generator and don't keep my bait in lake water even in the yak. My "treated" water has grain alcohol and salt in it and it hardens the minnows and kills a lot of micro. I add some of the popular commercial preservative mainly for the recognizable blue color. They last forever in it and travel well.
I have another bait tank at Texoma part of the year and do not take any of the bait from there at all. I left a boat in the lake for a month in a slip and it took an act of congress to get the mussels off the pontoons. It looked like thick dust but was covered with very tiny mussels. I drain my bait tank completely if I am going to be gone for more than a week or two and never bring anything even wet from Texoma home. I took the carpet runners off the trailer and put HDPE runners on it and got cast nets I just use there. Now they hang in open air for storage rather than in a bucket.
But If I were to get the wrong game warden,,,,,on the wrong day,,, I'd probably be really sad. It is still completely up to them whether they want to write you up or not. Most are really cool though.