Just picked up some bait traps to hang from my slip on Lake Lewisville and curious what everyone uses for their traps? I’ve always heard bread and hot dogs but curious if anyone has other suggestions that work?

Normally I throw my cast net but it would be nice for quick trips after work to show up and have some bait ready to go.

I didn’t put any bait my trap but I did throw a couple of handfuls of chicken scratch on top of it after I set it. .

Thanks! So you just threw the trap in and then dusted the water with the chicken scratch?

A small piece of white styrofoam, 4x4 or so. I tie it to the bottom in the middle. They have to go in to see what it is. It’s crazy but it works!

Yep....bout half a Yeti cup full. When I was a kid I had a clover trap and all I had in it was a styrofoam bobber that was white and it caught a ton of fish but somebody figured they needed that trap more than I did and helped themselves to it. Anything will work as sunfish are curios and will want to check out whatever is in the trap. If you use bread the minnows will pick it clean unless you put it in some type of screen materiel. Chicken scratch worked great for me.

Onion will work great. cut in 4 pieces .

back when I set perch traps the styrofoam worked just fine

Thanks guys. One more question. I bought two traps and my slip is pretty deep. Do I put them at different depths like one on bottom and one midway through the column?

You will have to play with that. But keep an eye on them daily! If it’s hot and you have it shallow that can die. Same as being deep. Lack of oxygen. I only put mine out when I need bait. Some times I might put them out a few days before just to know the bait situation. And I’ll put the bait back in the lake. When I first started using them I did kill some perch. So I really stay on top of them now. When the perch are really stacked up one trap will catch more bait than you can use!

I have used the styrofoam block as well as flour tortillas which stay together better than bread, but most effective, always works, bait is a small can of cheap cat food with a pop top. Just partially open the lid and the cat food will stay in the can for days.

i fish in Canada and the guy there sold minnows that he trap. I mean 100000 of them every day. I ask him what he used for bait. he said macaroni.

I don't generally visit the cat page but this topic caught my eye. Very good post by all. I always used bread but now I will go find my trap and experiment with these suggestions. Very good stuff guys!!!