Dead Fish

[captmac]

I have noticed of late a lot of problems with fish dying in the livewell, experienced it my self in a derby in late april, we did nothing different with the fish or the way the recirc pumps were managed than had been done for years. Not to start a vicious rumor but could these problems be likned to a coming water quality problemcausing weaker fish just wondering

[Outside Bend]

If the lake's water quality was causing the fish in your livewell to die, I expect you'd be seeing thousands of dead fish in the lake itself.

[OzarkFishman]

Or ... the water quality is low --> this means that the fish are weaker and cannot withstand the livewell experience.

The fish would still be able to survive in the lake.

Just my 2 cents,

OzarkFishman

[Outside Bend]

Interesting logic.

If the lake's water quality was so poor that the additional stress of a livewell would be enough to kill the fish, it seems reasonable to assume other stressors- spawning, competition for food, predation, catching, handling and releasing, disease and parasites, natural variations in weather and dissolved oxygen, etc- would have the same effect. Ergo, you'd be seeing lots of fish belly up in the water you're fishing.

If recirculation pumps and aerators are working as designed, the water in the livewell should be of pretty similar quality as the water in the lake. You would get some additional stress due to crowding, but that stress is pretty easily manipulated by the angler.

Capt- if you could answer a couple more questions it may help figure out what's going on...

Are the fish you're catching showing any signs of stress?

Lethargy?

Poor body condition (skinny, big heads)?

Patches of missing scales or fungus?

Lesions?

Are you having the same results (dead fish in the livewell), no matter what part of the lake you're fishing? Even if you fish different lakes?

[captmac]

All fish seemed at least to the eye to be healthy was just thinking out loud,trying to help figure out th dilema.

Same boat kept a limit of fish alive on Grand lake in August all day so not thinkin its a livewell problem.

[Phil Lilley]

If you're catching the fish deep and not fizzing them (releasing air), that might be a problem.

Most of the time it's low O2 I'd think. They make additives for livewells to help.

What was the temp of the water you're fishing? Ice helps too.

[ness]

Hey Phil,

How do you fizz a fish? I saw that mentioned in another thread too, and it's a new one for me.

[T-RockJaws]

Last Saturday with air temps at 90 plus and water temps in the low to mid 80's, we had 5 fish in the live well pretty much all day long. All survived just fine without having to do anything extra. Since some of those fish did come from fairly deep, we did open the livewells several times to check and make sure the fish were doing okay. I would tend to agree with Lilley that it was most likely a low oxygen level in the water within your livewell.

I would also add that running your aerator pumps continually instead of on timers might help as well.