Leeches?

[SamSteele]

I’ll chime in on how to keep them alive. I don’t trap them but I have successfully kept them alive from May until late August when I finally run out.

I split them into 1/2 lb amounts, into containers that are shallow so they aren’t piled up on each other. I also use an aquarium bubbler with a couple sparging stones to aerate the water in the fridge. You can get one off Amazon for pretty cheap.

I find changing the water daily for the first week or two is critical, then I move to weekly water changes. I use lake water (fill a 5 gallon) or rain water and keep a pitcher of it in the same fridge as where I keep my leeches. This way the new water is the same temp as the leeches.

I do not feed the leeches at all. Feeding them causes them to put more waste into the water, so you need to go back to changing the water daily.

When you are doing your water changes, make sure there are no dead leeches in the container. If there are they seem to cause others to die as well. Pitch the dead ones immediately. It also goes without saying that if you hook a leech and end up still having it when you’re done fishing, don’t toss it back in with the rest as it will die and it seems to cause others to die as well.

SS