Heading up this week entry point 22. What's everyone's thoughts on the best live bait to use, specifically end of June. In the past we have stuck to leeches only, but this year I am thinking about doing minnows. Any experience would be appreciated.

Don't overthink it. Leeches will be all you need.

quote old_salt: "Don't overthink it. Leeches will be all you need."

Indeed

We take in fatheads each time we go. We sink one or two of the bigger buckets and tie them onto a buoy in 15-20 feet of water with a baseball size rock or two and some small rope tied to them. The regular buoy line for marking fish has broken in the past in strong waves. We put them into buckets when we leave the landing.

We travel 8hrs to get to where we base camp. Have a bucket for each canoe and one or two of the bigger lid locking ones to sink. We go with 4-6 people usually. It is a hassle to some to deal with the buckets and such on portages, however I have always done way better jigging with a fathead as opposed to leeches and crawlers which are easier to pack away. Just change out the water every 15-20 min or so and you will only lose a few on the way in.

We fish hard for five days and take a quart for every two people. We always take crawlers too just in case of a fiasco like when the marker line broke. I haven't had any mass kill offs if you keep a couple of dozen in the buckets on shore that you take out fishing with you. Grab more when you need them from the sunken bucket(s). I am sure others have lots of ideas and opinions on bait and how to portage and keep them alive but this is what works well for us. Take some with you and see what works the best.

I have always liked fishing with minnows as well. But yea you gotta want to to drag buckets of water across portages. But if your young and tough (or as in my case just a bit ornery and hard headed ;-) why not?

Just remember to get the Fatheads and not other types of minnows which are not so hardy. We call the Fatheads "toughies" and that for good reason.

When I was a kid it was my job to keep the minnows alive. We had no battery powered bubble makers. Instead we had the old fashioned 2 pc galvanized minnow buckets. I would constantly have to raise the inner part out of the water and plunge it back down creating mass bubbles and current. This was done repeatedly to keep the 6 dozen or so "toughies" alive on the 1 hour drive. Quite a boring mundane task for a kid under 10 years of age......."pump yer minnows son"

Leeches!!

crawlers are a nice back-up. easy to care for, just keep in the shade.

Depending on what you are fishing for. Leeches are by far the easiest way to go.