Well I'm out of school so it's officially summer. Decided I should get a bait tank in order before La Jolla really starts poppin. In true college student fashion, decided cheaper was better and set out to make the cheapest possible functioning bait tank I possibly could. I don't fish bait much anyway, so I'll only be using it when that's all they want. Anyhoo, first stop was walmart, picked up an attwood bilge pump, a $3 lantern battery and a drain plug. Then it was to home depot, got a bucket, lid, some tubing and a hose clamp and went home to think about how to put it together.

The reason I bought the bilge pump instead of the bait pump (same price) was so I didn't have to buy a bunch of fittings and valves. I just gotta plug it in and dunk it when I want aeration. It'll drag beside the kayak while the tank is on.

Ok, first step was to stare at the bucket and decide where to drill holes. Put one in the bottom for the drain plug, one fairly high on the tank for outflow and stared some more thinking about inflow. Finally decided to just stick the hose through a hole in the lid and call it good. Had to put about three 1" holes side by side and connect em so the hose could go in at a good enough angle to get some circular flow in the tank. I also cut out the middle of the lid.

After that, clamped the other end of the hose to the pump (didn't really need the clamp) and tested. Turned out the flow was a bit excessive, so I added another outflow hose just in case.

Rod rack was converted from my old float tube rod rack. That actually took awhile, but it came out pretty good. The two through bolts holding the mounting bracket are above the water line and there's no other connection to the actual bucket below water level.

Total Cost: $30 plus $5 for a 1" spade bit to drill holes in bucket.

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