I still go with the darker colored containers because they do seem to
put the fish more at ease during capture. Of course coolers are usually
white on the inside and I don't have any rationale why they are better
other than they have more space and water surface to volume area plus
are insulated. If you are by yourself they are more awkward to carry so
buckets easier for that. If it is hot then the flow thru bait bucket
designs are probably better- otherwise they have to be kept in a cool
shady spot until you can get them home or to your base camp.
In Florida Mike Quispe & I had a bad experience handling shiners. Before
I got into using coolers (I credit the influence of Mark Binkley & Mike
Thennet) I used a plastic crate with transluscent sides and dark green
lid -with holed drilled in the bottom and nested in a similar sized
transluscent plastic storage box. I used a bilge pump to move water from
the bottom space to a spray bar that provided aeration. Worked fine
hauling killifishes and sunfishes but when we caught an assortment of
Sailfin, dusky and what we thought might be either Ironcolor shiners or
red-eye chubs near Orlando and brought them along with us to the
Panhandle region they were all expired halfway enroute.
The culprit was the bilge pump which heated the water - fine for cold
weather or with heat tollerant fishes - but not shiners in 90 deg heat!
That prompted me to make the switch to sponge filters driven by
airstones!
And of course coolers which provide an additional buffer against extreme
temperatures.
Jeff
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