Bait bucket: keeping the fish alive

A bait bucket is a container built not to carry water but to keep a fish alive in it. This is the first of the three jobs in keeping livebait — getting the fish there alive.

Why the double wall

It works like a thermos: the water inside changes temperature more slowly. That's the main quality of a good bucket, because a sudden swing kills a fish faster than anything else. The size here is secondary, the rate of cooling is not.

A lid with holes

A closed bucket keeps the water from sloshing out on the way, and the holes still let air through. A sealed container with no holes at all turns the trip into suffocation, and the fish arrives alive but limp — a fish like that doesn't work on the hook.

What the aerator does

It pumps air into the water and evens out the oxygen through the whole volume. On a long trip that noticeably extends the fish's life — but only if the water hasn't also been overheated: an aerator adds oxygen, it doesn't undo a swing in temperature.

What isn't done with the water

It isn't swapped for tap water: the temperature and the composition are both different. Warm water isn't topped up either. The bucket isn't left in the sun or warmed inside the car — a fish carried in the warmth turns limp in the hole within minutes.

What isn't added to the bucket

Snow and meltwater: they carry almost no dissolved oxygen, and their temperature is lower than the water already in the bucket. Adding snow 'to keep it cooler' does to the fish exactly what it's meant to be protected from.

Where it's set on the ice

On snow, not bare ice: the snow keeps the bucket from freezing down and from cooling sharply from below. A bucket that has frozen to the ice leaves its bottom behind when it is pulled free.

How much water goes in

Enough for the fish to move freely, but not right up to the lid: there has to be air left above the water — that's what comes in through the holes — and a bucket filled to the brim spills out on the way through those same holes.

What the fish itself shows

A fish that's alive and fit sits level in the water, reacts to a hand moving over the bucket, and doesn't lie on its side. One that hangs near the surface or keeps rolling over won't survive till it's fished — it's replaced, not hooked; exactly how a fit one is hooked is in the card on hooking it.