Best livewell techniques

How does everyone handle the fish in their livewells on tourney day?

I know many people add ice to thier livewells. Is this really a good thing? It is good from the standpoint that cooler water holds more oxygen, but moving fish from warm water to cold livewells back to warm water could stress fish as much or more I would think. Unless you know your DO levels in your livewell are low, why do it?

Do you pump in new water, or have it on recirc? Do you run your aerator on manual or timer?

Do you use rejuvinate or some other such additives? I have read both positive and negative comments on them.

I skip the ice…Constant run bubbler….Pump fresh water on a timer….Seems to work well for 5 smallies, don’t know about bigger greenies, I seldom put them in the box….

I have a 192 crestliner with a Oxygenator in livewell, and leave the pump on. Haven’t lost any except when you bump the livewell switch and turn it off for a couple hours in the heat. oxygenator is definately a fish saver.

I add fresh water all day long. I do not recirc unless I am in some thick slop or go to the weigh in and have to wait in shallow water. I only use catch and release if I have a fish that has been deep hooked, or one that is bleeding and then I use it sparingly, but often, because I am adding fresh water and keep diluting it.
Have never lost a fish due to livewell problems.

i pump in fresh water about every 20 mins to half hour manually because i dont trust my boats timer. i also put in rejuvnade powder, seems to work. other than that toad dying on us sunday, i’ve never had a single fish die on me.

Here is a graph.

http://oxyedge-chum.com/images/Average_mortality.jpg

Here’s the above linked Chart

Just fished a tournament on Waconia with a 25# bag, come the end of the day. Had a limit within 1/2 hour to start the day. Three of those fish were over 4#’s. Noticed that when you would first put them in the livewell they would go up on their sides. Probably to do with coming out of the thermocline and getting dumped into 84 degree surface temp water. We knew the day was going to be tough on the fish so we came prepared with 2 coolers of ice. We first weighted the fish with 3/4 and 1 oz. jigs by sticking them through their lower fins to keep them positioned upright. Learned that trick in a Pro/Am a few years ago. When a fish gets on his side, it’s minutes before he’s a gonner. Added ice through out the day and used it all up by 12:00. We had 4 more hours to go in the tournament, and when the water got warm the fish would start turning pale and start going sideways. We went to a marina and bought 4 more bags of ice and used the last of it up with 15 minutes to go. When you would add the ice you could look in a couple of minutes later and they would be completly green and respondent again. We also were using a salt additive to the water (Don’t remember the name – maybe Rejuvinate) and running the livewells continuous. So my personal opinion is continuous water, ice, salt, weights on the fins and it helped keep 25#’s in one livewell and 13# in the other alive for a 10 hour day. All these fish were released and swam away hopefully to get caught another day. To see those fish look down a few posts at Fishnut shatters the record.

I have not EVER had a 25 pound bag in the well but I have had a few good ones in there. My personal opinion is ice and recirculation. Seems like if you continue to recirculate the same water it stays at a constant cooler temperature which helps not to shock the fish. I throw two handfuls of ice every half hour to 45 minutes when it is hot. Another little trick I do is fill my livewells as soon as I put the boat in I fill the wells while in reverse to get the coolest water I can and then recirculating that same water all day. I have not found that Rejuvinate or Bass Medics has helped keep my fish alive.

Never thought of adding weight to their fins to keep them upright though that is a nice little trick

Don’t you worry on recirc that the amonia and waste levels could climb too high?

I still don’t know on the ice. Seems many do it and think it helps, but it seems to me to be kind of counter intuative. I guess if you are exchanging fresh water all day it would stay at a relatively close level to the lake/river water, but seems like taking a fish from 80 degree water and putting him in 50 degree water, riding around all day, then pulling him out and plopping him in 80 degree water again would be rather stressful. How cold is the water? Would be an interesting study to measure DO levels and temps in livewells at various points during the day with and without ice.

i made a huge mistake 4 weeks ago i was fishing a team tourney with my dad out of my flat. i have a 120qt cooler with an aeration bar in it. before i left i put about a gallon and a half of hose water in it(so it didnt blow out of the boat)and stopped at kt and bought a small bag of ice and threw it in the cooler. by the time i got to dresbach the ice had melted into the water. i had a fast and furious crankbait bite going and in 15 min i went to throw #5 in the box and when i opened the lid 1-4 were floating(from shock, purely my fault) i have never had a fish die and i was frantic…how could i be so dumb? i took the fish out and placed them in the net while my dad dumped the cooler and refilled w/ river water. i put them in the new water and massaged 2 at a time over the boat in warmer water until eventually all of them came around. i was in pure panic mode the whole time. luckily they alll came through fine but i will never make that mistake again. i still feel horrible about it. i know its not the same as a boat that is recirculating all the time but i just thought i would share how fast you can shock them.

Waterfowler… unless you are on an artesian well, the water from your hose was CHLORINATED and likely FLOURINATED! As someone who’s learned aquarium science the hardway by killing a few goldfish in my day, one NEVER uses city water without treatment of de-chlorintion tablets or drops. Chlorine will SMOKE a fish pretty fast… it looks like they start to breath heavy, gills puffing, and then… gone. Be careful using ice, too… if you take it from your freezer, it is city water. When you buy ice from Kwik Trip, be sure you get the stuff that’s “free” of chemicals.

The water temp in my livewells when I recircualte all day is only a few degrees cooler than the surface temp. I am just trying to keep from taking on surface water in the heat of the day. Water temp varies a lot obviously from the surface down a few feet so those fish are not exposed to that 80+ degree water. As far as the waters chmeical balance with waste I do pump a gallon or two of fresh water in the livewells throughout the day to avoid. I personaly have never had a problem with fish dying so I guess all I can say is it works for me.

Doesn’t hurt to have the best livewells on the market either Skeeter fish always stay alive!

When its hot out I drop 1 or 2 frozen water jugs in the livewell and pump fresh water in all day. The block of ice in the jug takes longer to thaw than cubes and keeps the water temps at a more consistant level throughout the day.