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Posts: 300
Location: Minocqua, WI | Hey guys. I'm the type of angler who is too stubborn to buy live bait for anything. Last time I set foot in one of the local shops to buy minners was 3 falls ago and I don't even remember what I paid for in suckers.
Anybody know where I can get the best deal/price for medium to large suckers? I plan on drowning and dragging a few of them while casting next week just to see what can happen.
The only local places I know are Rollies but since everywhere I fish is to the north, it's a little out of the way for the early morning runs. And then there's Kurts and then Great Outdoors Sport Shop which are conveniently located.
I also plan on going through the Mercer area as well. What's the recommended shop in the area?
The cheaper the better. I'm a poor college graduate. I don't plan on keeping them alive overnight in an aerator or anything.
haha Thanks! |
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Posts: 1168
| 5 to 6 bucks. You can tip a dollar to everyone who read all that stuff when you could have simply asked how much they cost. |
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Posts: 300
Location: Minocqua, WI | I'll give you $5 if you re-read and let me know which place has the best buy. Or is that too much to ask?  |
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Posts: 2323
Location: Stevens Point, WI | Sucker prices are pretty uniform across northern Wisconsin from what I've seen. You might be able to save a $1 or so a sucker but what's a $1 if you have to travel out of your way to get them? Just get a bunch at Rollie's and make sure you keep fresh water on them and have some kind of aerator on them overnight, they'll be fine for a weekend. |
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Posts: 146
Location: where the fish are... | every bait shop in the minocqua and woodruff area ive ever been to has "medium" and "large" suckers there. Hell Walmart might even have emm and you know you can save money there. |
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| i've picked up suckers right in Mercer before, Flambeau Flowage Sports if i remember correctly. also the gas station in Presque Isle or the fishing store that's one block north of it in P.I. both have good ones for pretty cheap. Townline Sports near Manitowish is up that way as well. if you're getting a dozen suckers, saving the buck (or two) on each one by getting them further north will buy you dinner.
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Posts: 661
Location: Roscoe IL | "I don't plan on keeping them alive overnight in an aerator or anything" You won't keep them alive if you don't have an aerator on them, unless you have a sucker cage that you can keep in a lake or river.
Try Aquatic Arts in Tomahawk WI, they are in the $350 ea range..
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| I think Rapala makes a portable aerator (clip on style for bass tournament weigh-ins... probably fairly cheap), or see if you can grab a cheap one at an aquarium store. We held 10-12 suckers (8-12") in large coolers last year for around one month with periodic water changes and good aeration. If sucker prices are pretty uniform across Wisconsin then it probably pays to buy a good aerator and stock up on several at a time or re-use what you previously bought and didn't use... |
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Posts: 1220
| There's a gas station that has suckers for a lot less than the bait shop three blocks away where I am glad to pay the extra freight near me on Pewaukee Lake. The bait shop is there for me all the time meeting all of my needs and I am happy to be supportive in return. Wallmart is back sponsoring the FLW tour this year so I won't say you should not go there too, but I like to be supportive of the folks who stand behind our sport whether it's Smokey's here by me or R&H up by you. Marty Forman |
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Posts: 54
| New WI law guys... You can not leave the ramp without dumping ALL water from your livewells and buckets. That means, no taking bait that was not used, home..... |
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Posts: 258
Location: Mayville, WI | You can leave with up to 2 gallons of water IF it came from the bait shop. But, you can have a backup cooler in your truck filled with water (not lake water) that you can throw your unused suckers into. Problem solved.
sc
Edited by scmuskies 9/20/2010 4:24 PM
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Posts: 1168
| AndrewR - 9/20/2010 2:37 PM
I'll give you $5 if you re-read and let me know which place has the best buy. Or is that too much to ask? :)
I read it the first time. It was painful. It's going to be the same all over.
re: the "new" WI law...it's not that new unless you pulled a Rip Van Winkle and were asleep for the past couple of years. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | saving a couple bucks a sucker can add up as Lambeau points out...one weekend my buddy and I went thru 36..yup, 36..we had that many eating suckers...so the $2 we saved buying them in PI came out to $72 bucks...worth the effort...the cheapest places I've found are the sporting goods store at the top of the hill in PI, and the ICO gas station in Mercer....some are charging $6 for 12"ers..while others charge 3-4 bucks for the same suckers....frabill makes a portable battery operated aireator...takes two D batteries and can run for a couple days no problem if the batteries are fresh...
Edited by BNelson 9/20/2010 4:41 PM
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Posts: 2323
Location: Stevens Point, WI | Yes, in that instance it would be more cost efficient to find the cheapest suckers anywhere. My point was, I'm not driving an hour out of my way to save $2 on a sucker when it'll cost me that in gas money. But yes, if your going to buy 36 suckers in a weekend, absolutely it's worth it.
Reading the original post, he says in the very first line, ''I'm the type of angler who is too stubborn to buy live bait for anything."
I'm guessing he isn't going to buy more than 10 suckers, let alone 36. Sheesh. |
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| TJ. Not everyone has 1000 dollars. To some of us 10 dollars is worth saving. |
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Posts: 32885
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | You would save a couple bucks on six suckers driving from Mercer to Presque if suckers were $2 cheaper after gas at 14 MPG, and shoot an hour. My time is worth more than that. If you are fishing close to Presque or buying out the entire available inventory, sure, makes sense. If the price is the same in Mercer, then it's a no brainer, buy them where you are going to fish. If you are fishing around Minocqua or just north...do the math. Every 15 miles off the bait shop to landing pathway you for all intents throw a sucker out the window.
Keeping them alive:
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Posts: 238
Location: Rhinelander | $5.00 a sucker is too much for a 11-12 incher......(2) weekends ago paid $7.00 as they were the only game in town.
Now that I am not a full time Rhinelander resident (Job transfer,hopefully temp.) I could cut deals with the local gas stations.
Anywhere from $2.50-$3.50 per sucker....but I was buying on average 150 suckers per season. One year broke the 200 mark....shhhhhhh don't tell the wife "bait" cost that much. 
Now if I could could get everyone of the suckers to produce fish in the net......
Edited by Hodag Hunter 9/20/2010 6:48 PM
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Posts: 1220
| You know, I have that same Frabil pump that's in the picture above and I will offer a couple of tips, one, it's good enough that you can put it in the big livewell in your boat and not need to run the boat's pump for about 24 hours on a new set of D-cells. Since you mostly sucker fish when it's cold, saving the boat batts is not a bad idea. The other thing is that little blue stone like thing that the air bubbles come out of does not last too darn long. You can buy replacements for about two for a buck and you really need to have them. Sometimes the amount of bubbles you get can be decreased to almost a non-event as the pores in the stone get clogged. For 50 cents, I put in a new stone after 24 hours of use and believe I get a lot more bubbles. Marty Forman |
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Posts: 300
Location: Minocqua, WI | Alright. I get the idea now. My house is on a lake, and I do have aerators I use for the boat, but that and other factors are what makes the transport thing a pain in the butt.
Tim is right. I probably won't go through more than 10 all week.
Thanks for your time everyone...... Especially you, Ulbian. |
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Posts: 22
Location: Minnesota | Just out of curiosity, what's the average size sucker- or favorite size we all use?
I like em' 16"-18". Big enough for a healthy meal and small enough to wrap there lips around. |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | CoonTail Corner and Northern Highlands in Boulder Junction has them for 5 and 6.00.
The Tackle Box and The Forest Country Store (Mark Gostisha's place) in Land O Lakes has them for 5 and 6.00
Buy a cooler and a cheap Bubble Box, replace the stone with a Frabill Aqua-Life stone. I did the same with a 120V plug in. |
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Posts: 25
| Kurt's Island Sport Shop under the water tower in Minoqua has reasonably priced HEALTHY suckers. Not worth saving 2 bucks a piece when they belly up after 6 hours even in an aerated live well. I bought a plane jane 48 quart cooler added a cheap frabil air pump to it and keep my suckers in there with well water. That way I can leave a number of them in the cooler in my truck and not have mortality issues or VHS concerns. |
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Posts: 300
Location: Minocqua, WI | I didn't think much about Kurts.
From Wednesday thru Sunday, we went through 10 suckers total. Great Outdoors shop in Woodruff charged us $4.00 a pop for their 14 to 16 inchers. Pretty good deal. It was easy to keep them overnight. I have a small lake in my backyard so we kept them overnight in the drink so they stayed cold and fresh. Other than the few fish we caught on them, we had zero casualties and the three that survived since the weekend are in the bucket in the lake hanging off the pier. They'll be waiting and hopefully still alive by the time I return on Thursday night for another 4-5 days of fishing.
Thanks for the posts. We caught a 51" and three other shorties. Seemed like a stupid new coldfront came through every day and when we actually got something going, all of it would be erased within hours. |
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