Frabill Large Bait Station Bucket with Air Pump in the lid

Please be aware that the air pump inside the lid is not water proof and can fail unexpectively if you use these bait buckets a lot. I purchased one of these and the air pump inside the lid failed so I returned it to Gander Mountain with the receipt and they replaced the unit for me.

The second unit's air pump failed within a few months but Gander would not replace it for me again. I thought I was stuck with a non functional $70 minnow bucket and added my own air pump and used a differnt lid to keep my minnows alive.

After thinking about this for a while I finally called Frabill direct and explained what happened to their customer service people. She was nice and offered to send me a new lid if I would return the old lid to them at their factory. So I got another lid. But now I am going to avoid using this one. I have a couple of lids that I can use and will just use them and an external air pump with the large bucket.

I like the large size on these bait stations as they are taller than other minnow buckets. And these are insulated inside with a styrofoam insert.

You have to watch out as water will get inbetween the foam insert and the inside walls of the bucket and make the foam insert want to float up and out of the bucket. This will lower the water level available to your minnows so you have to be careful with this.

I add some frozen water bottles to the minnows water to help keep them alive longer. And I change out the water daily to keep it fresh. I also add those blue Better Bait crystals to the water to help keep the bait alive longer.

I also use a small floating aquarium thermometer to keep and eye on the water temperature. I like to keep the water temp below 60 deg F.

I think that while I was traveling with the first two units water sloshed up into the air pump somehow and caused it to fail. Also the pump is installed with TR3 type security screws inside the lid and you can't take the lid apart to check the pump or fix it with out finding and purchasing one of these special security type screw drivers.

I wrote up several reviews and submitted them to the Gander Mountain Web site but they never posted them on the web site. I did get a confirmation email showing me that they had received my reveiws.

They only review they show was one showing that this bait station was excellent and they never did print my reveiws at all giving it a 2 star rating and explaining about the problem with the air pump.

Inside the lids battery compartment they put a slip of paper that warns of this pump failing problem when exposed to water vapor. But by the time you find this piece of paper you will probably have already paid for the unit and have it at home. By then it's a little too late.

Most of the time my bait bucket was sitting inside my garage hooked up to a cigarette lighter 12 volt plug to run the air pump. They also sell a 120 volt AC plug that you can use with a standard household electrical outlet to power the 12 v DC air pump inside the lid.

I posted this in here because I thought that people should be aware of this problem with these units. Frabill needs to make them more waterproof somehow using "O" rings instead of the flat rubber seals they now use. That might solve the problem with the air pump failuers.

Other than the air pump these are nice units with very tall buckets and a heavy duty plastic lid that fits sharply onto the bucket and stays in place very well. There is even a light inside the lid to help see the minnows when it's dark. The light goes on when you turn the air pump on. But the light fails before or at the same time as the air pump so it must be getting exposed to water too.

The unit will run on two "D" sized batteries which are inside the lid.