I was watching a t.v program the other day and noticed they were putting ice into there livewell to keep there water temp. down. I was wondering if anybody here has tried this and doesn’t this shock your fish? I have a tournament saturday and sounds like it could be a warm one out there. Thanks for the help.
I have added salt and a “Little” ice when things get hot. Then just set the live well timer to recirculate. 
I have never added a whole bag of ice.
FDR
I would suggest freezing milk jugs instead of bagged ice. I believe store bought bags of ice have extra chemicals that don’t always agree with fish.
I have never put ice in a livewell. When it is hot we crank up the timer on the recirc pump and every chance we get we pump fresh CLEAN water in. Around 3 times an hour. We have not had a problem.
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I would suggest freezing milk jugs instead of bagged ice. I believe store bought bags of ice have extra chemicals that don’t always agree with fish.
X2 I freeze butter dishes. They seem to be about the right size to cool a livewell without bringing the temp down to fast. I also use a product called Please release me by surelife. I’ve had to use ice at the last 2 tourneys. When the surface temps are over 80 Deg. it gets really hard on fish in a livewell.
If you are bringing bass up from a deep weedline, the water they were in is a lot cooler than the water on the surface, which is where your livewell gets it’s water from. A bit of ice won’t hurt those fish one bit. Fishing tournaments on a hot summer day, I often seen folks put a bag of ice in the livewell.
I never put loose ice in with my fish! Most ice is clorinated and will kill fish in great amounts. On really hot days and a mother load of fish I often freeze water bottles the night before the tournament, pack several in my cooler. Recently during a NBAA tournament I noticed that one of my livewell pumps wasn’t working. One of my larger(20″) smallies was on its side. I think I felt the sickest knowing I was going to lose this beautiful fish. I immediately added a couple of bottles of frozen water bottles. Then I left my “hotspot” to retrieve and extra pump I had at our cabin. I called ahead and had my son meet me on the dock with the repacement pump. I checked the fish and seemed a lot better but not real good yet.After making the pump switch I switched the 2 bottles from earlier with 2 more frozen bottles while the 2 pumps were set on manual. I then went to the windy side of the lake to pump optimum oxygenated water. By now the air temp was in the mid 90’s! Water surface temp was 86. Not good! But before we headed back to our “hot spot” we made sure all fish were upright and “frisky”. By this time , as we pulled up to our hotspot another tournament team was camping on it. As we were pulling up we watched as the pulled another hawg smallie. AGH! we went to a couple of more spots and eventually got a great limit. We ended up 2nd in the tournament but didn’t lose any fish. The frozen water bottles saved the day. Try it it might save your days catch too!
Water bottles work great, just freeze them and drop one in the livewell at a time.
The water bottle thing works great! Just remember to put your livewells on recirculate when you put the bottles in so you are not pumping warm lake water in and leave your livewell pumps running. We also put our life jackets on top of the livewells to protect them from the direct sunlight. (only when the big motor isn’t running) The Catch-n-release chemicals work great too!
Water Bottles –
It helps keep the fish that have the lead inserts – stay upright.
At least in CA.
Dog 
Like a lot of guys said, I like to use frozen bottles over dumping bagged ice in. One thing tho, dont fill your livewell full and put ice in before you get your fish. Puting bass into a livewell into 60 degree water from 85 degree water is wut is going to shock them. Its much easier for them to adjust when the water is gradually decreasing.
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