Whats The Best Additive For A Livewell?

[Christian M]

I'm ordering an additive for my livewell today, I've seen a few products, "Please Release Me", "Catch & Release", and a few others, what do you guys feel is the best ? I'll be purchasing oxygen tablets as well...I keep LMB as pets in an aquarium so I have a good idea of what it takes to keep the fish healthy...

[Hooligan]

The best additive for live wells is constant water flow. That's all there is to it. Ice is bad, chemical can be harmful to the slime coat. Constant fresh water is the best thing there is.

[GLADES]

I never use additive, I agree with Holigan. If your LW is working properly, you really don't need it.

[backpain...]

I have used both and they work very well.

[Todd Driscoll]

I use what is recommended by state fisheries agencies, and that is "noniodized stock salt" that you can find at your local feed store. By nature, bass blood is 0.5% salt solution. You add this salt to create a 0.5% salt solution (1/3 cup per 5 gallons of water) in your livewell to prevent what is referred to as osmotic imbalance. This imbalance is a major factor in the delayed mortality - that is, fish that die several days after tourney release. See page 20 of the BASS fish care document below for more details on livewell additives. IMO, the whole document should be required reading for all tourney anglers.

http://assets.espn.g..._bass_alive.pdf

[Al Wolbach]

The best additive for live wells is constant water flow. That's all there is to it. Ice is bad, chemical can be harmful to the slime coat. Constant fresh water is the best thing there is.

I never use additive, I agree with Holigan. If your LW is working properly, you really don't need it.

I believe this depends on where you live or fish. Where I live the surface water temp reaches the 90's in the summer and the fish are caught 25' deep. Night tournaments help but you still have the above situation to often. I use salt and frozen coke bottles(16 oz I believe)to maintain my livewell. I get my salt in 50 lb bags from the local farmers coop(last for years). It's crushed salt used for livestock and is very cheap. I mix 1/2 cup per 20 gallons and change the water every hour and a half to two hours. I also carry a small O2 bottle(welding O2) with reg, hose and stone for emergencies if I start to loose them. It works, they are "break dancing" within seconds of receiving O2.

During the regular tournaments of spring and fall all I use is the salt. A friend and occasional tournament partner is a fisheries biologist. These are his recommendations. They are a pain but work in the really hot part of summer.......................Al

[GLADES]

I believe this depends on where you live or fish. Where I live the surface water temp reaches the 90's in the summer and the fish are caught 25' deep. Night tournaments help but you still have the above situation to often. I use salt and frozen coke bottles(16 oz I believe)to maintain my livewell. I get my salt in 50 lb bags from the local farmers coop(last for years). It's crushed salt used for livestock and is very cheap. I mix 1/2 cup per 20 gallons and change the water every hour and a half to two hours. I also carry a small O2 bottle(welding O2) with reg, hose and stone for emergencies if I start to loose them. It works, they are "break dancing" within seconds of receiving O2.

During the regular tournaments of spring and fall all I use is the salt. A friend and occasional tournament partner is a fisheries biologist. These are his recommendations. They are a pain but work in the really hot part of summer.......................Al

Living in Florida, I use ice bottles in the warm weather too, to keep the fish comfortable, but I do not use catch and release. Thanks for the info.

[Glenn]

Everything you need to know is right here: http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/fish-care-in-the-livewell.html

It's an easy-to-follow video. I've never lost a fish following these instructions.

[Al Wolbach]

Everything you need to know is right here: http://www.bassresou...e-livewell.html

It's an easy-to-follow video. I've never lost a fish following these instructions.

Glen I don't mean to offend but that is not all you need to know. Well it is all you need to know to release then alive, but if you want them to still be be alive 3 days later you need to do more and the link provided by Todd is a good start. Delayed mortality is the real problem that we don't see therefore it must not exist. The research I have done indicates it is a real problem that needs to be addressed and a capful of magic potion and a bag of ice are not the entire answer. Please read Todd's link........We owe it to the fish we all love to chase............................Al

[backpain...]

I would like to know the results of research on this. I fish mainly small waters compared to most. Here in PA the bass season opens so late that the water temps are usually high when bass tournament season starts. The lakes I fish are all under 1000 acres (between 500 and 700 I believe) and receive a healthy amount of tournament pressure. As many as two tournaments a week during the average summer season. I would think if there were a high delayed mortality rate you would see evidence on such a small body of water. All of the guys I know try our best to keep em alive and healthy. I see panfish and carp floating often but hardly ever any bass. Again, this isn't scientific evidence just personal observation on my home lakes.

I would love to see scientific data to show what the delayed mortality is on a normal scale. Because as you pointed out I don't see it. As I see it in that link the "problem" with the additives for livewells isn't that they don't work or do as they say for the fish, but that there may or may not be compounds that would remain in the fish that could be consumed later by humans.

[Hooligan]

I disagree on adding ice at any time, as would any fisheries biologist that I've ever spoken with about it, and I've talked with a lot of them through the years in my other career; couple that with having a degree in fisheries biology (but not using said degree) and you get where my standpoint is. The differential between the water temps with iced water is often too great and shocks fish almost always. As a result they end up with lactic acid build up, and delayed mortality as a result.

In terms of other additives, think about it this way- the number of things that biologists can use, in terms of chemicals, for fish is extremely limited. Primarily because there is a long term half life that cannot be metabolized by the fish. There are also a large number of the chemicals on the market that will initially strip the slime coat because of the way it acts as a disinfectant. SDSU fisheries dept has done much research on the subject and it's mostly readily available on their pages.

Todd, you make a valid point, yet typically, osmotic imbalance is unlikely to occur in livewell situation with fresh water flowing through. It's almost impossible for that to occur because of the nature of their regulation. To say that an imbalance would occur because of a lack of solutes in a body of water isn't very accurate. What, actually, can occur from a higher than normal concentration of salts, as in the case you present to create a base of .5% salt solution, is that they can actually become lethargic and the salt will then act as a sort of anesthetic.

Where a salt solution is most effective is in long term holding or recovery. There are instances in which it may be beneficial to salt fish in a livewell, but rarely are they effective for the tournament angler, other aspects of the catch/hold/release have much greater effect than salts.

Lastly, define your normal scale for delayed mortality. It's been shown to be in the 25%+ range by some studies (http://www.biol.ttu.edu/faculty/gwilde/Shared%20Documents/Reprints/Tournamentassociatedmortality.pdf) and as high as 51% in others (http://www.tnfish.org/NorrisReservoir_TWRA/files/BassTournamentMortalityGeneGilliland_TWRA.pdf) I have seen studies on the low end around the 13-15% marker, and I've seen studies at near 100% delayed mortality. It's far too subject to specific environmental affects to base a "normal" range. That said, the vast majority of post tournament delayed mortality rates are going to fall below the 20% mark from nearly all modern studies.

[Nitro 882]

The best additive to a live well is 5 very large bass.