North shore ice fishing get together

[The Dad Fisherman]

Sounds Good......

Gonna pick up a minnow trap this week and see if I can catch some bait for the upcoming season myself. A lot of ponds near my house should have some shiners in them...at 6-7$ a dozen for shiners it might be worthwhile to catch up a few.

[Rockfish9]

Keven .. alot of those small beaver ponds in Boxford and George town hold a good population of shiners..

I set up a large ( 50 gallon) rubbermaid tub in my shop with a quality filter and LOTS of air... feed them tetra min fish food every other day.. it's amazing how fast they realize that when the over head light in their area goes on.. it's time to eat. .. this tends to make them more hardy and have brighter coloring... I change 1/3 of the water weekly and remove any croakers daily... I've even have kept smelt taken during the fall for several months with this set up.... I do most of my trapping before the shell ice forms and have enough bait on hand to last all winter by Thanksgiving... last year i released about 200 shiners back to their native ponds... no worse for the wear, except for maybe being a little lighter in color..