Life Out Of Water

[jimburrows]

Yesterday I caught a small mouth bass in 22 ft of water,the surface water tempature was 41 and air was the same. It had been raining all morning and i began fishin at 12:30 as the rain was ending.  After catching the smallmouth I put it in an empty live well no water. When I arrived home 5hours later I was suprised to see the gills still moving and color remained the same or darker than when I put the fish in the live well. I put the fish in the sink and went back out to cover the boat, returning to the sink thre gills still working I filled the sink added ice and after a few iinutes the fish was able to swim upright. I could not kill the fish so I returnrd it to fresh water where it swam away slowly.

I am a tournament bass fisherman and smallmouth are the most difficult to keep alive for extend period. How can a small mouth survive so long out of water?

Conditions must have been perfect and the fish was calm in the empty live well. How can I use this information to keep fish from expiring during a tournament?

Jim B

[RandySBreth]

I don't know where you're from but most of the local people near me aren't going to be happy with you keeping any Smallmouth - just too precious of a resource. Lake Erie or somwhere like that is a different story. With no location or any other infor on your profile maybe you're just trolling for a responce like mine, who knows. The "kept it and then after ice and water and whatever it was back alive" probably killed it eventually anyway so why put it back after all that?

[VolFan]

Pretty sure this is a troll..."I kept it out of water for 5 hours then put it in the sink and then on ice to filet...but then I decided to release it"... Zombie smallie?

[RandySBreth]

Pretty sure this is a troll..."I kept it out of water for 5 hours then put it in the sink and then on ice to filet...but then I decided to release it"... Zombie smallie?

Yeah - that was my thinking too. We'll see.

[ClackerBuzz]

d**n and i thought i was a grouch.

the guys first post and he's getting jumped all over. its well written and he provides lots of info. sounds like a fluke so he had a heart for a fish that seemed to be defying all odds and released it again. now he wants to know what the heck happened so he joined this site for some possible answers.. so he can improve his tourny's. 

 

and if his regulations allow him to keep SM so be it.

 

i don't have experience with live wells but we've all kept nightcrawlers/insects/mealworms etc in the fridge and seen what it does to their metabolism.  41 deg is cold so maybe it's metabolism slowed down for winter and ur empty live well was nothing but a refrigerator keeping him on ice. 

 

maybe more experienced guys can provide info on minimizing live well mortality. don't guys dump ice in them sometimes?

[ww2farmer]

It happens all the time while ice fishing. I keep my catch in a bucket behind my seat in my shanty, I don't throw them on the ice, cleaning frozen fish is a PITA. Even though there is no water in the bucket, 8+ hours later many of the them are still alive when I go to clean them.

[jkroosz]

It happens all the time while ice fishing. I keep my catch in a bucket behind my seat in my shanty, I don't throw them on the ice, cleaning frozen fish is a PITA. Even though there is no water in the bucket, 8+ hours later many of the them are still alive when I go to clean them.

 

Ditto.

It must be related to metabolism.