Hot weather and live wells. When is it too hot for a tournament?

[Jigger]

At what point is the water too hot to have an 8 hour tournment and realistically think that a big portion of the bass taken from hot live wells, handled, weighed in and then released will survive? Any studies out there on this question? What's your own personal experience with this? Is there a solution? Should we be concerned???

[JB]

some fish will die, most will shrink a 1/4 inch or so if left in warm water

[senkosam]

Water temp is not a problem if extra care is taken to reduce their metabolism slowly using bags of ice; aerating with the best bubbler/ spray, keeping as few fish in a well as possible (my bassboat has three livewells), using non-iodized salt and handling the fish as little as possible (I use mouth clips to transport bass to the weigh-in).

Circulating lake water in and out of the tank is okay as long as you're sure the intake filter isn't clogged, but the water will still be hot. Any temp near 80 I would consider hot, especially if the bass were caught in cooler water below 30'.

Many fish die out west when tournaments are held in summer months and reducing delayed mortality can be super tough. Better to reduce creel limits than risk overcrowding. JMO.

[carolina-rig-01]

it seems like when the water around here gets into the low 80's or higher it becomes a factor. still not a problem if you take extra percautions. for example, i don't know about all the other boats out there but in my ranger every compartment can be used as an ice chest (except for my rod boxes). so i will use on of them to hold 3 or 4 bags of ice. before the takeoff i will fill my livewells with water and set them to recirculate. this will keep the same water in the livewells all day. add a bag or two of ice and some rejuvinade or something comparable, like senko said salt will work as well. i have heard of guys adding peroxide also. just keep adding ice throughout the day and put your livewells on manual and run them balls out all day. like i said i haven't had any trouble with dead fish when i do this but you have to remember to check up on them often and this is way too easy to forget when you are focused on the tournament at hand.

[senkosam]

Caveat for reducing the lw temp:

Fish can be shocked by being dumped in water much colder than the lake or being put back in lake water that is much higher than the livewell water. Bass aren't as sensitive as tropicals, but shock can happen.

Peroxide is a good idea, but you'd have to add a gallon or more for enough O2 to go into solution or for disinfection. For keeping fish infection free, a bleach or vinegar cleaning and thorough rinsing makes sense between tourneys. Any fish I see that has sores gets stored separately and may be sent to NYS F&G for analysis along with info where it was caught.

[lizardsrule]

Don't use Bags of ice, use frozen jugs of ice. This will keep any chlorine or other stuff not good for the bass from entering the water. Plus as Senkosam stated, it doesn't drop the temp so fast. Also use "Rejuvenade" or "Please Release Me" treatments into the live well. They do work.

Lizards

[carolina-rig-01]

when i use ice i always leave it in the bag, clorine isn't really a concern that way. one bag of ice into a livewell full of 85+ degree water won't get it real cool real fast. but i wouldn't add more than that, because they are right you can do more harm than good if you get it too cold.

[Jigger]

Thanks guys. Sounds like you have put some thought into this which makes me happy because as Lee Wulff said, "a good game fish is too valuable to be caught only once". Catch and release is a way of life.
Robert

[Captmikestarrett]

I put two big frozen coke bottles of water in live well morning of tourny. They are three fold reasons why. First it pre-cools the live well down before water come in. Second it cools the water down. Third it can be drank or poured on your self in heat exposure days.

Have you ever fished a long tourny and your HO shows up with one coke for all day? That water can prevent drain bamage on the fish and the HO.

Capt Mike

[perkdog65]

I do the same as Capt Mike...couple of frozen 2 litre bottles in the well in the morning...one usually ends up empty at the end of a hot day.

[links_man2]

Here is a good write up on mortality rates and keeping tournament fish alive:

http://www.tnfish.org/TournamentFish...Alive_TWRA.pdf

[senkosam]

Originally Posted by links_man2

Here is a good write up on mortality rates and keeping tournament fish alive:

http://www.tnfish.org/TournamentFish...Alive_TWRA.pdf

Excellent. I'l print it off for my club.

BTW, I fill two gallon size ziplock bags with ice per well and ocassionally use the ice in my ice tea from the thermos. This way the tea stays undiluted.

The two chemicals Lizards mentioned are both excellent formulations to encourage slime replacement and disenfection. Metabolism as far as I've heard can only be lowered by reducing the temp, but reducing it too much runs the risk of making a fish more vulnerable to infection. If the bass virus crops up in more populations, I'll bet it won't be long before F&G depts. require a lot more before issuing tourney permits.