So I walked in to the river rat bait shop (on highway 2) this weekend to get shiners. I went up to the counter and asked for a pt. they told me there was a limit of a dozen, per person I asked, no per group they said. I put all the jigs down that I was going to buy and walked out. Went back into GR to get bait. I could not believe that they would only sell a dozen for 4 guys. What were they thinking, they just lost a costumer. I will never go back.

Any one else run into this problem?

No most of the bait shops I talked to just said, we don't have any & can't get any. I know one bait dealer had a limit of two dozen.

Don't be too hard on that bait shop. I think they probably didn't explain themselves very well, but if they had say maybe 20 dozen shiners or whatever the number was. (I'm assuming you're talking about spot tail shiners.) They know they've got 20 guys & maybe a lot more coming to buy minnows. They probably figured it was better to sell each group enough to at least fish, as opposed to selling 4-5 groups all their minnows & turning away everybody else. It was a crappy spot to be in with the late ice out & the shiner run not happening yet in most places.

Shiner availability is very difficult right now. I wouldn't blame the shop.

nobody has shiners. i would sell my firstborn to get my hands on some shiners.

I was a little north of River Rat bait and also had trouble getting shiners.

River Rat is one of my favorite bait shops, I like the people that run it and have gotten lots of friendly conversation, good advice, and good deals on minnows and propane there.

Run into this problem quite often, especially on opener weekends. Sometimes, I'm all out artificial and hone my cranking skills, sometimes with attatched weights to bottom fish. I remember the sometimes expensive rates of $1 a shiner. Hmmm whats the going rate these days?

Yeah I heard on The MNN that they were catching way less shiners on Mille lacs this year than others.

Willmar Spicer Has all the shiners ya can buy 3 shops I go into all have them Full tanks $6.00-6.50 a Doz,rainbows also @$4.00.Lots of leeches also but there smaller this year no jumbos lots of small,Med some large.

I was able to buy 2 quarts on Friday morning at Ben's and then on Saturday nite we bought 2 more quarts from Fred's in Deer River. The shiner's at Fred's were the perfect size for Winni.

Marv's Minnows in Zimmerman has plenty of shiners. Right off of 169. Including rainbows and other walleye blends too.

We were limited in Grand Rapids on Friday to 2 doz.
We actually landed more walleyes off of fatheads. The shiners attracted too many hammer handles.

Always are...

Wow. That's a great attitude! River Rat has been a great stop for years and doesn't need a bad rap like you're trying to give them. I'm sure they'd prefer that you didn't return to the store.

Don't any of you guys net shiners? They are pretty easy to get. It takes us about 2 scoops to get 20dz and sometimes we'll get 30-40dz per scoop. We bring quite a few totes and have probably brought home or given away 3-400dz last week alone. This fish are really biting well on them as well!

reel fishing outfitters got some in no limit and plenty to go around. The tennessee shiners were out lawed because of diseases not to metion the cold weather was hard on the early season bait

I found out this weekend that I was very lucky in my timing and that is how I was able to get 2 quarts at Freds. The cold temps along with high winds has made the water close to shore to cold for the shiners to spawn. I was able to pick up a 1/2 pint and that was all that came out of there traps on Saturday. It really didn't matter to the walleyes if we used shiner or rainbows.