Made a quick search in the search feature, did not come up with any recent discussion on the topic, so if its been done and your tired of talking about it, ill understand. Anyway, myself and a few friends have gotten into keeping big shad, perch and other bait alive at home for months on end. Not sure how many of you guys are already doing this but I grew up hearing horror stories about not being able to keep shad alive for any length of time. I dropped a couple pics from my phone, should be enough to get you a starting point. I started with a 300 gallon poly tank, made a 5 gallon bucket Biofilter, I can adjust tank circulation, speed and direction, down to basically calm if I want. I have kept 300 10” shad for a few weeks, and 200 big shad for around 3 months in winter before they start dying off. If theres interest in the thread, I can post more details or answer questions. I totally love keeping live bait on-hand, keep in mind i’m in OK and we generally run 10 degrees colder than TX for air and water temps in winter, so its nice to step in my shop, grab 20 big shad and hit the road. Beats the heck out of throwing a net in sub 20 degree temps. Now late in the fall or early winter, when its sunny and 65, I make a run to a local lake and grab a couple hundred shad, drop em in the tank and i’m good to go for 10-15 trips. Would love to see pics or hear about the setup you guys are using for holding bait long term.

Wow that is an incredible set up. It have thought about building something similar to keep tilapia in over winter so I don’t have to buy them every year

Man that is a great idea. I'm curious though, what kind of pump you are using and also, does the 5 gallon bucket have a venturi set up? I see a small clear tube coming out of the top.

When the system is up and running, the bucket has a coarse filter on bottom, then a slightly finer filter for the next layer, then a finer filter for layer 3. Then theres a few dozen miniature bath lufa’s (the ones ur wife prolly uses in shower) then another filter layer and the final top layer is 10lbs of smaller sized lava rock. I chose to input thru the bottom so my filter stays full of oxygenated water all the time, all those filter layers, sponges and lava rock are where the beneficial bacteria live and grow, they filter the ammonia out of your water. I stock my tank with a dozen perch for a few weeks to get the bacteria colonized, then grab 50 shad, let them purge and settle for a week, then I load it with 100-200 more, i look at it each day but have only had 2 shad die in 3 years. I started out doing water changes but have learned its not needed in my setup, just treat tap water for chlorine, add salt, load fish in stages to let bacteria populate, look at em daily and fish em every chance I get. The clear hose running into the filter is just going to a small air stone in the bottom of filter, ensures I have maximum oxygen in the water passing thru, thats all the bacteria need, steady water flow rich with oxygen and fish waste, they take care of the rest. I do run a couple air pumps, just Wal-mart style, 1 pumps bubbles into the tank the other into the filter, have to use 2 pump because of the pressure difference between filter and tank, if u run a 2 port pump all the air will go thru the bucket filter because its got less pressure than the deeper bait tank. The pump in the tank is somewhere between 550-750 gph, cheapest “pond pump” they had at Harbor Freight. There is a small foam filter cartridge on the pond pump, i clean it daily the first few days after adding bait, takes 30 seconds, it grabs all the scales and slime, I never clean my biofilter til its time to empty the tank and [censored] down for the summer. Guy could obviously be as elaborate as he wants, I went pretty basic, but one thing I really like it 2 discharges from the filter, adjust the angle to control flow, i can run em both one direction and spin the water a few minutes and it pulls all the stuff on bottom into the center of the tank, i grab a garden hose, start a syphon and I can vacuum the waste in a couple minutes, maybe pulls 5 gallons of water from the tank and i’m good to go til I add more bait.

I used to have one similar to that 10 yrs ago and it did well. This time of year bait is usually very easy but on those days when it’s not, I always think back to that bait tank! Now that I am live-streaming our fishing trips I’m thinking more and more about getting another bait tank up and running. Having the livestream start time scheduled for a certain time puts a ton of pressure to get bait and find fish before the stream starts. I’m always up against that clock! I would love to minimize some of that pressure by having bait ready to go but to also have the right bait for when we travel fish.

I would like to see some more in depth photos of your filter setup. Also, how do you keep algae from growing all over it? Do you just use a bait tank to transport the shad from a local lake?

I don’t have any in depth photos of the filter on my phone and unfortunately wont be shutting down and cleaning the filter until May. I will try to remember and take some pics when its disassembled and then some as I reassemble it. I found most of my info from google and Youtube, kinda built what I liked and used parts I had access to. Search for 5 gallon bucket filter, or biofilter, bait tank filter, any combination of those terms. Even if you find a video where the scale is different, say someone is building with a 55 gallon drum, the principles are the same. You want to filter water before it hits ur pump to avoid clogging the pump, then you want to progressively filter your water is it passes through the biofilter but most importantly you want as much surface area as possible for the bacteria to attach and grow, the more bacteria you can house in your filter the more bait you can hold in the tank. I use treated tap water for my tank, its in my shop where there’s no direct sunlight, I have not had a problem with algae, and I dont have to treat for it, again im running in late fall thru early spring, so minimal sunlight, low water temps and im filter or vacuuming the waste from the tank to a pretty high degree, not really creating optimal algae growing conditions. For transporting bait, consult your fish/game laws but in OK I am allowed to catch and transport up to 200 shad for personal use. I have 2 methods, net em into the 140 gallon livewell on my boat, spend a couple hours crappie fishing while I run the fresh water circulation across them as they stress, slime and purge, then load the boat and haul em home, or I have built another 110 gallon transport tank for the bed of my truck with a lid, 12v aerator and a filter similar to the “striper soup moeller bait tank” filter setup with venturi fitting. I also have a small 26 gallon bait tank I could use to haul 30-40 in cold weather as long as I didnt have to go to far, its also filtered with the “striper soup” venturi system. Winter water temps are much more forgiving, get good water flow thru your filter, bigger is better for tank size, treat tap water with quality conditioner (I use API Stress Coat), I have been salting my water at a rate of 1 cup for 30 gallons of water, start by adding a dozen fish and waiting 2 weeks (crappie, perch, shad, any fish) then add another 50 and wait a week or 2, after that I have been able to use and abuse my system, the water may get cloudy if I dump 150 big shad, but I clean the small filter on the pump a few days in a row and within 4-5 days water returns to crystal clear. If you ever did notice your bacteria numbers may be low, water gets really cloudy and fish get lethargic or sickly, do a 1/4, 1/3, or 1/2 water change, that will reduce the ammonia load long enough for your filter to catch up and colonize additional bacteria. Its just been a bit of trial and error for me, most everything I have tried worked, more than anything over time I have put less effort into caring for the bait, they are fairly resilient and the biofilter system on a 300 gallon tank it pretty robust for keeping shad. I have held BIG shad, like 15” shad for 3 months solid, kept them alive all the way til the Catmasters tourney on Tawakoni last year and they were good enough bait to land us in 3rd place. Round tanks or rounded corners, ample water volume and good filtration make shad pretty easy to keep. I grew up netting shad into a 5 gallon bucket in summertime and every time I looked at em, more would die. With a little setup, you will be surprised how easy they are to keep in cooler water temps.

Dang! I'm tired just from reading that! State of the art bait tankin! I love it. I kind wish I had room to do something like that and my wife is kinda glad we don't...