How to....Live Bait Pen

[deepsushi]

Hooper,

I myself utilze a "striper candy" pen in the spring when they are running. I have built some out of 40 gallon trash cans drilled full of holes which could hold 25-30 alive for some time. I also tried building a larger one out of of bird netting and irrigation pipe that had approximately a 5 foot diameter by 5 foot depth and it worked, however the herring tended to get stuck in the mesh.

This past season we bought a pen from Ketchum traps over in New Bedford for $120 bucks. It is made out of vinyl covered lobster pot mesh and it is approximately 5 feet diameter by 5 foot depth. I went to Walmart and bought a couple of those "noodle" things and attached them around the circumfrence with tie-raps to keep it floating.

One nice feature is that it has a large door in the top held in place with a bungee cord latch. When I got herring I could transfer them by dumping the herring and water out of a five gallon bucket directly into the pen without any escaping. When I needed some to use for bait I could reach in with a long handled net and scoop them out.

This thing works beautifully and at one time I had 150+ herring in the pen and they survived for several weeks.

Someone else had one tied up my dock and they still had herring that survived in this thing until August...