The trap shown above is one of those with rubber coated mesh. I have not had as good of trapping success with them as the type with bare wire. For some reason the fish do not go in those rubber coated traps as well. I tried painting those traps a drab color thinking it may be the black color; that did not much improve the catch success rate. I'm not saying one cannot catch fish in that style trap; just saying it has not caught as many fish as other similar style bare wire traps fished side by side.
I paint the new bare shiney wire traps a drab color and that seems to help catch rate. I think poor traping success with rubber coating has to do with the overall mesh thickness with rubber coating. IMO rubber coating slows rusting but does not increase catch rate.
I have been able to catch lots of golden shiners in traps if GS are common in the pond. Larger traps are sometimes better than the smaller traps for g.shiners. Lift nets are also good for catching smaller shiners when they are abundant. As Theo says, when larger GS (4.5"+) are common one can catch lots of them with a No.14 hook baited with bits of worm using light line & tiny bobber.
Could it be that the coating is giving off a distinctive odor or leaching out chemicals that fish tend to avoid ?
I had one of those, gave it to my brother to catch minnows. Never even caught one. Nice concept.
My dad use to make minnow traps from glass jars for a local bait shop. He would form up some wire and braze it together to keep everything intact. The bait shop had the jars and lids custom made. They worked (sold) quite well as my dad was making several hundred per month for about, maybe, six years.
Materials were: Glass, Polypropylene, Galvanized wire, and brazing rod. I know that they were very well cleaned off before shipment.
