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I had great success trout fishing sometime back using pinfish at the flats at Keaton Beach. The local bait shop there sells them along with live shrimp. I can't find any bait shops in the St. Marks area that sells them. Anybody out there have any advise on a good trap (other forums say smaller traps work better than larger traps)? Also need some suggestions on what you have used to bait the traps. I know the flats at the light house are loaded with them. They eat my Gulp swimming mullet like candy when Im popping cork fishing!

AMS in Medart has them

I have had great success with a classic minnow trap in St Joe state park. But not so much elsewhere. I got a trap at Kevin's that was reasonably priced but have not had much success. What works best is rigging a pole with a sabiki rig tipping the hooks with bits of shrimp. I can catch a bucket full in ten minutes or so if any pins are around.


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I am not much of a live bait angler, but a friend does a fair amount of it. He sets a square type (Key West style) with a bait holder near the bird rack in front of the Saint Marks Lighthouse (where the grass meets the sand bar). Usually he leaves it overnight prior to his fishing day, so that it is full in the morning when he is ready to fish. He uses squid or chum in a sock then installs the sock in the bait holder.
I have read and heard a few folks getting their traps stolen. I hope that does not happen to you.

I have a trap from AMS and 2 of the offshore models from these guys.. Catchlivebait.com and these traps will out produce the standard pinfish trap 3 to 1. I have the offshore model and they are small compared to the standard ones from AMS. All of the traps they sell have the same size inlet so if you get one I would recommend choking the inlet down to keep the really big pins from getting in the trap. I use a zip tie I. The middle of the inlet and get perfect sized pins for the flats.. If I want offshore baits I simply remove the zip tie and it will catch big ones.

Again, these are the BEST traps at catching lots of pins. If you put the trap in a productive area, you'll have 5-6 dozen in the trap. I've had them catch 3-4 dozen in a 4 hour soak. If you leave them overnight, you'll typically have plenty of bait.

I have personally had 2 traps stolen within a qtr mile of the lighthouse. The sabiki rig works well. My son can catch 15 to 20 in less than a half hour using one.

I ran across these and thought this may be a cool way to keep the trap from being stolen.

http://www.neptunemarineproducts.com/ga ... -releases/

I saw some that were 12 hour somewhere else. Just a thought.

We usually throw a cast net after chumming but one of my buddies has a trap. It is usually hit or miss (mostly miss) although there have been a couple of times the trap was pretty successful
The most pinfish I can remember being caught in the trap was when he baited it with cut bluefish he said he bought at a fish market (Hard to imagine a bluefish in a fish market).

We have tried ladyfish as well as other baits but the blue definitely had the best results.

Mine usually always get stolen out of Keaton. Chumming and then throwing a net works well but I like cutting a sabiki down to 2 hook each lines and putting small pieces of squid on it. Squid is cheaper than shrimp and lasts a lot longer. Put a weight on the end so it sinks in to the smaller pins. If you get out there and have forgotten your sabiki bait then cut up a white gulp in tiny pieces and use it for bait. This is usually my zen moment when I finalize my plan of action to go fishing

use GPS to locate and no cork