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High Cotton.
There was a 400 boat tournament this past weekend on Kentucky Lake, that resulted in what appears to be a lot of fish washing up on shore near Paris Landing. http://www.scout.com/outdoors/wired2fis … -dead-bassThis has me wanting to ask other owners how they handle fish care. I have a 2006 Pantera Classic. Anytime I have a fish in the livewell, I run both the Recirc and Aerator on 5 minute intervals. When the water temps get over 80, I run on 3 minute intervals. When I fish a tournament that has a trailered weigh-in, before pulling out of the water, I make sure the livewell is full, and then run the aerator on manual/constant, and add U2 Livewell treatment.Additionally, I found the following FAQ from 2010 related to livewell operation. Is there any update that BassCat would recommend?http://basscatowners.yuku.com/topic/131 … W3k9BHbKM8
I fished Friday and Saturday on Kentucky Lake for fun. I will say every boat around me that was a Triton was very respectful and courteous. There were a lot of them. As for the fish kill we all as fishermen owe it to each other to do our best to keep this from happening. I dont feel they had adequate staffing for a weigh in that size. Everyone can learn from this.
It seems like there would be a way to route livewell lines through the ice chest area to cool the water in the livewell somehow. It would work as long as ice is in the ice chest. It is just room for something else to go wrong though.In some of our hotter summer tourneys my partner and I have frozen some 2 liter bottles of water and put them on one side of the box while using the other side for the fish. That worked well for us anyway. We didnt lose a fish and ours were pretty lively when releasing compared to the others.Purchased new 5/4/15Bass Cat Sabre Vision EliteMercury Pro XS 150MotorGuide 75lb Tour EditionHumminbird – Stock (will be changing soon I hope)
The picture of those fish thats been circulating on the web does shows a lot of dead fish. If those are all bass some of them are huge! Many think those fish are likely not bass but Asian carp. So I think the jury is out on this supposed fish kill. Not been online since this morning, so some one may have verified they were bass by now, I dont know.
This post is a primary reason we only use 20-25 bags at the Invitational and have a very long bag line. We must protect our sport from this type of exposure and that brands present ownership will not tolerate this situation. They know it puts a black eye on our sport and we must always be good stewards of the resource. We try hard to minimize loss of fish at the Invitational and had almost no loss in any of the 28 events. We have never had more than a few fish decease ever. We will continue to have those long bag lines at the Owners Invitational and now you know why. Situations surrounding posts like this Leave questions of live well aeration quality, handling concerns and lead those who oppose our sport to point at the loss of game fish. BCB
I keep ice in the live wells during summer.I even have some old drinking jugs I fill with water and mix rejuvenate in with it to freeze and put that in there too. As it melts it releases the rejuvenate at smaller portions instead all at once. Also dont have to deal with a possible mess to clean up in the boat.
Having a post spawn ledge tournament is asking for trouble IMO. Lots of em dont fizz, cant fizz, or do it wrong. Its just tough on the fish also. I had an 18 lb sack at ferguson last weekend all beat up post spawn fish that I fought all day long to keep alive. Ran a total of two miles. Its just tough in June. They got caught with their britches down IF that picture was for real.
Before we had modern livewells and fish saving additives, we used just ice and made sure we fizzed deep bass. Sometimes, the tourney director made sure you had ice during the pre tourney livewell check. Some even gave ice bags to all boats in the tournament. We didnt seem to have the problems I see and hear about today. It is possible there is something else going on with the water today that we havent yet discovered. All different kinds of things cause fish kills from algae blooms to sewage put into the lake. LOZ has a problem with people clandestinly piping raw sewage into the lake.
The lower water temperatures keep the fish livelier with less stress while in the cooler water in the live well, but experience shock and stress after being returned to the lake. Frozen tap water melting in the livewell also introduces chlorine into the water.I wasnt there, but some said the fish took a beating during boat rides due to the wind.Last edited by m0ssie on June 4th, 2015, 8:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Wizard wrote:Before we had modern livewells and fish saving additives, we used just ice and made sure we fizzed deep bass. Sometimes, the tourney director made sure you had ice during the pre tourney livewell check. Some even gave ice bags to all boats in the tournament. We didnt seem to have the problems I see and hear about today. It is possible there is something else going on with the water today that we havent yet discovered. All different kinds of things cause fish kills from algae blooms to sewage put into the lake. LOZ has a problem with people clandestinly piping raw sewage into the lake.I think with modern electronics more fish are being caught deeper Hence more stressed post spawn fish
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