Dock Live Bait Tank? (saltwater)
 

I'm wanting to hear from anyone that has experience with building or using a live bait dock tank. I'm thinking of using a plastic 55 gal drum with some sort of pump to keep constant water flowing through it to keep live bait at my camp in the summer. I am in the prien lake area on the water. Any ideas or personal experience on what works and what doesn't to keep bait alive and ready?

Just build a cage with fine mesh screen and a topside door or hatch and keep it in the water. Build some sort of pulley system to pick it up till only a few inches of water remain. Then just dip net the bait out of it.

This is what I was thinking.

Or..... you could drill a bunch small holes in your 55 gal. drum and keep it in the water connected to a small boat wench to pick it up to take some bait out.

To keep the drum at the same depth in the water, you might attach some "floats" around the top. This would keep the drum in the water and not be effected by hi or low tides.

There is a guy in Hackberry who builds them for all the folks on the water. I will try to get his name. I built the 55 gallon drum setup and drilled hundreds of small holes. I used a boat trailer winch and rope on pulleys that goes up, over, and down into water. It works for mullet and piggy perch. Shrimp need more circulation of water. I am building another setup now to set on the dock.