how do you Keep shad alive overnight

If I put shad into my grayline bait tank I assume they will stay alive overnight. How do I keep the tank from running my battery too low. Can I just leave the battery on the maintainer over night? Will that keep my battery charged up with the load of the pump for the shad tank?

Also, any ideas on this issue would be helpful.

You can buy a battery operated aerator at Academy and use it in your bait tank overnight

I have a 30 gallon Grayline and have no problem keeping the shad alive and the battery charged with my in boat charger. The problem arises from the circulation system of the Grayline tank. It has two pumps on my tank and running them overnight causes the water to heat up. The hot water is bad for the shad. Adding ice periodically is the simple solution. It is never simple. I had to add ice during the night and it was a pain. Lively shad are very attractive to the fish and I broke down and bought a water chiller and circulation system for them. It was pricey but it would keep them alive in the heat of the summer. It's crazy what we do to catch fish. By the way, I live on the dead sea and even the live shad did not produce fish consistently this year. We can only keep trying.

Where did you find a water chiller and recirculate system?

A group 24 battery runs my Grayline overnight, the next day, and the night after that. I unplug the aerator pump and only run the top pump.

Go to Walmart and spend $25/$30 on 2 dual bubbler pumps and 4 12” blue stones in the aquarium dept. when you get home with your shad tank full, turn tank pumps off and install the 4 stones and plug them up. I have done this for several years. Keep the stress down and does rn your battery down or heat up the water.

The above info will get you by
Please be aware of the new bait laws - I am not sure if they are being enforced, but you can not transport bait in the boat - even if its city water. Bait must be moved to a vehicle tank filled with fresh water.

Bait chillers are expensive and available from Penguin Aquarium chillers

You can run the pumps while the battery charger is charging the batteries

I wish I knew where to see the actual law written on this. I have seen a few different vague versions of it put out by TPWD.

You can transport bait from ramp to ramp at same resovoir, and since PKfishing lives on the lake. He can by launch his boat, get bait and return home for the next day of fishing.

That’s the way I understood it as well.

Hard to understand the way it’s written. That’s why I asked a game warden face to face.

I leave my tank on and throw some shad saver in it. I have a 30 gal greyline.

My recipe.
During the summer I stop at the bulk ice place at PK. I buy several 16lbs bags of ice.
I put 1-2 cups of salt in my 30 gallon greyline. I built a system that has one pump to filter and areiate.
I fill the tank with Lake water and add most of a sixteen pound bag. Catch the bait and leave them alone with the exception of filter changes. Plug the onboard battery charger in and go to bed.
Put shad down catch fish and repeat!

In the cooler months I use salt and lake water. Plug it in and go to bed.

Small threadfins don’t keep well. If your going to keep shad overnight gizzards are your best bet.
On PK Striper fishing normally means two fishing trips.
One on the muddy high end for shad and another down the lake for stripers.
It take a little driving and a few extra boat launching but if you can catch good bait you can catch good fish

Randy, won't the chlorine in the ice kill the shad? I've heard guys dechlorinate water and freeze it to use when it hot out.

If he puts 16 pounds of ice in a 30 gallon tank, that's not a lot of chlorinated water by percentage. Sixteen pounds is just under two gallons - with possibly 28 gallons of lakewater in the tank. The chlorine is very diluted at that point.

I usually add an aquarium starter from Wally World if I use ice. 30 gal tank. 5 lbs of ice and 3 or 4 capfuls of chlorine killer, handful of salt tablets used for pools.

Have used Ready Ice right out of the machine for twenty years and never lost bait.

Don’t overthink it.

Cold water is dense and therefore it holds more O2.
Warm water does not hold O2 well.

It’s not that shad don’t like warm water. They do!
It takes about five gallons for each shad because of the fact that warm water can’t retain O2.

If you put 40 shad in 30 gallons of warm water the oxygen is just not there and you can’t replace it fast enough.
That’s were the ice comes into play. It makes the water dense and It allows the water to absorb o2 antherefore the shad do well since they they pull the O2 from the water.
You can also replace the 02 with your pump because the water is cool.

I don’t think about that every time I catch bait.
Just salt and some ice in summer and salt and lake water in the winter.

Good information Randy, thank you.

Randy: You are right about that. I went up to Rock creek camp and got the shad. That stained water really helps. I can't see the shad as easy buy they cant run from the net when I throw like down lake.

Not sure about Gizzards. I have not been able to find them. I did get some big 5-7 inch threadfins and they kept pretty well. The smaller ones tend to get caught up in the greyline intake or just die. The big threadswork well for stripers but the sandies wont leave them alone. I miss most of them because they can't get the whole shad in their mouth but manage to kill it.

Kerry: unfortunately, that's what I'm having to do. Gotta go up lake and get the shad and go mid lake for the fish.

Great input from all you guys. These tips will help out many of us.

I have also found out that it helps to have a have a small holding tank (5gal bucket). Once fish is netted, let them swim for a few mins in the holding tank to reduce the amount of slime introduced into the main bait tank

Hamster1: That's a good idea. Think I'll do that in the future. I usually have a bunch of leaves and sticks that I don't want in the shad tank and it can also let we weed out some of the small shad that will get stuck in the filter and perch.

Great post! I use a five gallon bucket filled with lake water to empty my net into. I let them swim for a few minutes and then transport them to the main tank by hand. Cuts down on slime and scales from initial shock...

I do the same as Randy overnight. I fill my tank with salt and lake water and leave it plugged into my charger overnight.

I have a 50gal super bait tank II. The problem I have at night is the filter clogging up. I change/clean the filter before I go in for the night, but sometimes the filter will clog up and the pump stops pumping properly and heats up! What types of filters are you guys using? Pillow stuffing, sponges ??? I found that if I leave the pillow stuffing out at night the sponges are less apt to get clogged up.

I let the shad do there thing once the hit the tank with poly filll.
After I have changed the filter a few times and the bait has calmed down I often pull all the filtered and screens. Just let the pump recirculate and ariate. That way there is noting to stop up while I am away or sleeping.
I start filtering again when I am around to monitor tank.

so lets say you get a had a 10 gallon bucket drilled it plumb full of holes put flotation on it with a lid and put it in the lake? same lake water same lake temp how well would that work?

depends on how many amps your maintainer puts out. lets say your pump pulls 4 amps and your maintainer puts out 1 amp! see where im going? your battery will last a little longer. now lets say your pulling 4 amps and you put a 4 amp charger on it. then on paper it should stay charged. understand? look on your airator it should say how many amps it uses

Here's how it worked. My battery was at 85%. I had the shad tank and the aerator on. Got up the next morning and the battery was at 100%. It worked fine, however the poly filter was almost totally stopped up with scales and shad goo.

I hate fishing with shad but stripers love them so gotta give them what they want.

As a kid we use to take a small garbage pail drill holes in it and place it in an inflated tire tube. We had a 30 gallon plastic drum on board the boat( no holes ) and would place the garbage pail inside it while we traveled spot to spot. Once we got to a new spot we would simply take the garbage pail out and put overboard. We also changed the water in the drum a few times during the trip
FIRST POOR MAN'S LIVE BAIT TANK with no moving parts

There is a product called sure life shad keeper it should work good its supposed to help keep them alive longer it has good reviews online

If you use sure life shad keeper it will remove chorine from the ice in the water

I had filters on my factory livewell and the screens would stop up also so i removed the screen filters and replaced with pvc drilled with lots of 1/8" holes and a endcap and that cured the scale slime issue.
my timer was set to 3min run 3min off and back in july-sept i could go 7-8 hrs with 1/2 still alive
the filter was no longer an issue it was always cycled with fresh lake water. but i was cautious not to over crowd livewell. and my well is square. The screen filter on drain it would either stop up from scales or if removed a damn shade would plug it. but i use no chemicals or salt just constantly recirculating fresh lake water. randy is right on the cold. be nice if could gut one of those small 80.00 refrigerators gut it and refrigerate the bait tank

Buying some rock salt and putting some in will help

Isn't the goal to NOT have iodine as an added ingredient, and not so much that it be "rock" salt (which is also non-iodized)? In that case, many stores do have "non-iodized" salt for sale in granular form, which dissolves more readily. I recall seeing commercial bait sellers use granular salt from large bags....but it was non-iodized. You can add this same thing to a livewell for other fish or bait also. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken on this...

Randy
What kind of tank did you build?
Do you have any info on it?

Salt is unneeded at Possum Kingdom. The lake is extremely salty.

Here is the best way to do it so you can sleep at night instead of checking shad all night. I use 50 gal. Grayline with only one pump. one handfull of stock salt per 10 gal of water,O2 tank with regulator and Point Four diffuser, treat water with Pond Prime,if water temp is over 80 it should be cooled down with ice but don't overdo it. The O2 set up is much more reliable than any pump system.

Wrong

I us salt at alll lakes even pk. It helps.