Hot Livewell?

[slimshad]

Was on another forum and they asked about hot weather and livewells.  I am sure its been a topic before but I thought I would bring it up again since the weather has gotten to a slow boil everywhere.  I NEVER bring in "fresh" water during a tournament.  I fill up the well and set it to recirc.  I then add frozen bottles of please release me water in as the day/night goes by.  Taking the cap off and allowing the frozen formula to cool and reviv my fishys as it melts.  What do you guys do to keep the water cool and or fish alive.

[slimshad]

Man not alot of tournament guys on here.  This part of the forum is a ghost town.  I will tell you my findings.  I tweeted some BASS pros.  Brandon Paulnik responded very fast and said he uses please release me, flip clips and ice.  He leaves the water in and no new water.  John Crews and Justin Lucas was the same but changes the water once a day.  These young guys get it and are great anglers too.

[Glenn]

Here's a video that goes into detail about fish care in the livewell:

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/fish-care-in-the-livewell.html

 

and here's an article about fish care during the summer

http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/handling_summer_bass.html

[jhoffman]

I have a timer in my boat that can be set up to five mins. At 5 mins, the pump kicks on for 30 seconds, I use U2 in my livewell and frozen gatorade bottles.

[CDMeyer]

I run the aerator and put bags of frozen water in my live well or ice

[South FLA]

I don't tournament fish, since I would rather fun fish  !  Nevertheless, I do keep fish in the live-well to release back in my neighborhood pond and I haven't had any significant mortality in many years of fishing in the hot Florida weather.   I get a distilled gallon water jug and freeze it and let that baby float in the live-well all day long, also add the recommended amount of please release me to the live well when I add fish. During the day I have my livewell recirculate water every 2 to 5 minutes depending on temperature and keep an eye on the fish to make sure they are in good health.  I only change water out if it looks bad or becomes dirty from the fish regurgitating stomach contents. 

[Coherence]

Since my live well is small, I keep the water on constant recirculate, use please release me - on every trip where i am using the live well to hold fish, no exceptions, and if it is killer hot I also drop a bit of ice in there if needed. usually my live well stay decently cool all things considered. I can't really float a bunch of bottles etc in the well because it is fairly small (much older boat, the designs have come a LOOOOOONG way since then). 

[slimshad]

I had my July night tourny sat.  We had 8 fish in the livewell most of the night with some being caught really early.  Second cast!  I put about 5 pounds of ice in at first to get the water down a few degrees and a frozen two liter bottle with Please Release me in it.  It was still cooler than the lake water in the morning and all eight fish were as lively as they were when we put them in.  Two bass were in my livewell for 14 hours.  One had a hook still in its throat.  My partner hooked it deep and I decided to cut off the hook rather then ripping the throat of the fish.  That fish was in great shape the next morning.  I can't believe we fish 14 hour night tournamnets but we do.  It is getting harder to do the older i get.  We won with 18 pounds and that makes the drive home a little easier.

[papajoe222]

The only thing I do is add ice to the water and keep the switch on recirculate, but the water temps in the lakes up here rarely get higher than 85 and I keep a white towel over the live well's carpeting to reflect the hot summer sun.

[South FLA]

Check out some real science about keeping bass alive in bass boat livewells in the summer…

1^st, if your bass are not dying in your summer livewell, you do not have a problem. You are not overstocking your livewell and probably not winning any bass tournaments. Keep doing what you are doing.

 

2^nd, if your bass ARE dying in your livewell, the most common summer livewell killer is low insufficient dissolved oxygen in your livewell water.

 

3^rd, if you are real lucky and catch a limit of bass large enough to overstock your livewell, you’re chances of bass sometimes during the day are high and something to worry about even though your boat livewell was certified “functional” by a tournament official.

 

The easiest most effective, scientifically proven and best way to fix low oxygen problems in summer livewells is: Give the fish more oxygen and less air. You just need to give your catch enough oxygen and everything will be lovely all day even in 90 F livewell water, the same temperature as the lake water where you caught them.

Your catch will thrive all day in your boat livewell. It is the same compressed welding oxygen used in weigh-in holding tanks, life support tanks at weigh-in’s and on live release boats to oxygenate transport water in haul tanks… the same oxygen all Texas Fish Hatcheries us when the transport live fish and the same compressed oxygen used to transport large trophy bass to Athens, Texas in the Share-Lunker Bass Program.

 

The point is to get the fish to the scale on a hot summer day  – alive.

 

Oxygenation of Livewells to Improve Survival of Tournament-Caught Bass  by Fishery Biologist Randy Myers and Jason Driscoll TPWP, Inland Fisheries Division, San Antonio, TX Publication 6/2011

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/inland/livewells.phtml

Livewell Oxygen Injection Systems by Fishery Biologist Randy Myers TPWD, Inland Fisheries Division, San Antonio, TX Publication 6/2011   http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/livewell-oxygen-injection-8773301

AquaInnovations Oxygenator - How Effective is It - by Fishery Biologist Randy Myers TPWD, Inland Fisheries Division, San Antonio, TX Publication 2-14-2012 http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/the-oxygenator-how-effective-is-it

Hydrogen Peroxide for Bass Boat livewells - by Fishery Biologist Randy Myers TPWD, Inland Fisheries Division, San Antonio, TX Publication 2-14-2012 - A total of 12 one-hour experiments were conducted with oxygen levels measured every 10 minutes.

http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/hydrogen-peroxide-for-bass-boat-livewells

 

Bass Fishing Tournament Mortality    http://oxyedge-chum.com/bass-tournament-mortality/

 

Keeping Bass Alive A Guidebook for Anglers and Tournament Organizers http://assets.espn.go.com/winnercomm/outdoors/bassmaster/pdf/Keeping_Bass_Alive.pdf

By: Gene Gilliland

Oklahoma Fisheries Research Lab

Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation

Norman, OK 73072

National Conservation Director, B.A.S.S. 2014

 

By: Hal Schramm

US Geological Survey

Mississippi Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Center

Mississippi State University

Mississippi State, Mississippi 39762

 

By: Bruce Schupp

National Conservation Director B.A.S.S.

Montgomery, AL 36117

 

Enjoy the science of Keeping Bass Alive - it works extremely well if you are having summer livewell problems.

 

This right here is an ^^^ANSWER^^^^ NICE!!!

 

If you are real nerd read this too:

http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Physical_Chemistry/Equilibria/Solubilty/Temperature_Effects_on_the_Solubility_of_Gases

[F14A-B]

I had my July night tourny sat. We had 8 fish in the livewell most of the night with some being caught really early. Second cast! I put about 5 pounds of ice in at first to get the water down a few degrees and a frozen two liter bottle with Please Release me in it. It was still cooler than the lake water in the morning and all eight fish were as lively as they were when we put them in. Two bass were in my livewell for 14 hours. One had a hook still in its throat. My partner hooked it deep and I decided to cut off the hook rather then ripping the throat of the fish. That fish was in great shape the next morning. I can't believe we fish 14 hour night tournamnets but we do. It is getting harder to do the older i get. We won with 18 pounds and that makes the drive home a little easier.

Slim, what lake? Indiana or Kentucky? Or ?

Just curious ...... Sounds like a long nite...

[jhoffman]

Wouldnt we all love to have oxygen injection systems in our boats. Problem is, youre running out of room fast with todays goodies. Bigger stronger batteries, hydrolic pumps, the gas tank. Unless youre willing to mount the bottle on the deck the avg guy wont have it. They also are not cheap in any sense of the imagination.

 

Maybe when I get to the point where I can afford any boat I want and justify it with wins and have every other accessory I want I would then entertain an oxygen system.

 

Someone needs to scale it down considerably and make it so that You can carry just enough to give them a timed shot once in awhile, say maybe every two hours it kicks on and runs for five mins.

 

Us guys fishing these tournaments where youre lucky to win $500 if you win are getting to the point of negative returns with what we have in it, winning just means you spent less for the year, youre never really ahead.

[F14A-B]

Wouldnt we all love to have oxygen injection systems in our boats. Problem is, youre running out of room fast with todays goodies. Bigger stronger batteries, hydrolic pumps, the gas tank. Unless youre willing to mount the bottle on the deck the avg guy wont have it. They also are not cheap in any sense of the imagination.

Maybe when I get to the point where I can afford any boat I want and justify it with wins and have every other accessory I want I would then entertain an oxygen system.

Someone needs to scale it down considerably and make it so that You can carry just enough to give them a timed shot once in awhile, say maybe every two hours it kicks on and runs for five mins.

Us guys fishing these tournaments where youre lucky to win $500 if you win are getting to the point of negative returns with what we have in it, winning just means you spent less for the year, youre never really ahead.

Exactly, and a smaller tank is easily done, I ve seen so many guys work hard to get where they could afford a big boat, fish a few tourneys, and unload that rig for way smaller! Then they are happy again!!

[Logan S]

I fish a lot of tournaments each year, at least 13 as that is our regular schedule.  Without a doubt the number one reason for dead fish that I have seen has nothing to do with the actual conditions...

 

People just flat out don't maintain their livewells and/or batteries.  Most often it's just batteries....They are either old, not sufficient for all day cranking/accessory use, or both.  Battery starts to die and the guy is forced to use the livewell less or even turn it off.  

 

 

 

All the other fish care tips are great and they do help...But the most important thing you can do is make sure your equipment works properly.  You would be surprised at how many TX angler's don't...

 

FWIW, I very rarely have a dead fish penalty and 99% of the time I don't take any extra precautions.  I just run my wells when there are fish in them.  Even in the summer on the Potomac, I rarely run into issues where I'm worried about the fish...My stuff works and I let it run.  

[jhoffman]

I had five fish in the box two weekends ago for almost 8 hours. I had the livewell full early and it stayed full all day. The fish all but one never had one issue. The one that did, I brought her from 40ft in a hurry and didnt attempt to fizz her as I didnt see a bladder coming out. She was weird from the moment she went in the livewell. I had to watch her throughout the day but the end of day, all fish left just like they went in. One fish literally JUMPED out of the livewell as I was putting them in the bag.

 

It was hot, I was more worried about not taking good enough care of myself as at one point I thought I was gonna drop. Im not sure if an 02 system wouldve helped her. The pump on my boat isnt a recirc, its incoming fresh water. When the box filled I had the timer on its lowest setting so it was kicking on every min, between the spray bar and bubble system those fish looked great.

 

Knock on wood ive never put a fish in the livewell that died. Unlike many, I dont have a $25,000 boat, I have a $5000 boat so accessories do add up. I think if I had a boat I was intending to keep for 10 years or more then a o2 system would go in it. My boat could never hold a two man 10 fish limit livewell is big enough for 5-7 decent size bass.