Picture 25 is of the plastic minnow trap. Under the right conditions I have caught a lot of minnows with it, but generally I don't feel like it performs as well as the wire mesh traps. This could be nothing more than a function of the smaller opening of about 3/4" compared to 7/8 and 1" in the two different wire mesh traps. One problem with the plastic trap is that it floated. Originally I put a rock in to weigh it down, but eventually added the piece of metal strap in the photo to keep it on the bottom. I thought it odd to build a trap that would not work without adding some sort of weight. Or maybe it is supposed to float around at will and I just did not use it correctly. There are some tabs that can be cut out of the opening to make it a little bigger and I may try that. I hardly ever catch small BG in this trap (likely because of the small opening). Has three plastic clip pins holding it together which look like will not last as long before they break compared to the metal traps and somewhat clumsy to use.
Starting with picture 08 is the trap I like best overall. It has a 1" opening (with no reinforcing ring and just the bare expanded metal for the opening) and is built out of slightly smaller mesh than the other metal traps that I have. One downside to this trap if I am trying to trap only FHM is at times it will trap a lot of 1-2" BG. It is easy to tell when I pull it out of the water in my big pond if it has a bunch of BG in it --- it has a distinctive louder "patter" sound as the BG flip around a lot harder than the FHM's. This trap is my best trap to catch small GSF out of my old pond. The GSF have a more fusiform shape than BG and I can capture 2.5" and even occasionally up to 3" GSF with it. The slightly larger opening I suspect is the reason this trap catches more BG and GSF than the others. The GSF are also just natural chow hounds and I think they try harder to get in to the feed also. Mild spring steel single clip pin that rusts. Mesh is small enough on this trap and the plastic trap that I can simply dump some fish pellets through the opening and throw it in the water. Pellets for the most part stay in.
Starting at picture 18 is the third style trap I have. I actually bought several of these, thinking it was just like the previous metal trap only better with the wire welded into the opening for reinforcement. What I did not realize is this trap is built lighter. Either the gauge of the metal is lighter or else just the expanded metal having larger openings makes it weaker, but this trap needs the extra reinforcement in the opening because the metal is enough weaker I have actually noticed just with normal use the whole trap gets some distortion in its shape. Nothing serious enough to render it unusable, but the other trap without the ring in the opening is actually a more sturdy trap. The ring makes this trap have a 7/8 opening compared to the 1" in the other trap. This trap will also trap very few small BG compared to the other metal trap. Stainless single clip pin that does not rust but the fitup on closing not quite as good as the other metal trap. If I dump pellets in the opening of this trap unless they are larger pellets, half fall out making baiting this trap not as easy.
