I just wanted to ask a question, I dont fish in tournaments at least not yet but was wondering how anglers keep 70 to 100lbs plus of fish in the livewell. My 16 foot Monark would not hold that many. Do you bring something else other than the well in the boat.
Most use big ice chests or coolers with areators or bubbler systems and change the water often .I put frozen 2 liter bottles of water in with the fish through out the day . Its not that hard once you learn how to take care of them all my fish swim off pretty quick now.
I got a little extra room if yall catch one to big tomorrow I will tote it for you, (no dinks) just call me from your hole and I will swing by and pickem up:wink:
During the really hot weather, trying freezing salt water in jugs and use them. Salt water seems to melt slower so it stays cool longer. Learned this trick in my beer drinking days..:smile2:
I use a big cooler with an areator in it. I also use a $17.00 bildge pump, some hose, a small through hull fitting, and a bigger onefor a overflow to cycle the water through the cooler. I have an inlet and outlet on the cooler and on the inlet I attach the hose from the pump and drop the pump over the side into the water. It fills up the cooler till the over flow, and cycles the water. In the summer I plan on using the ice ideas as stated above. I like the coolers cause of the insulation. I have seen guys use plastic bins.
If the water your holding your fish in is 10 or more degrees colder or warmer than the water it came from, or is going back into the fish could suffer thermal shock and die. The bigger the fish the more fragile it is. Its best to keep the water temp as close as possible for the live well and home water. Most cat tourneys have 1-2 limit creels, the ones having 5 limit creels are pushing things in my opinion.
Fishin a five fish tournament is OK. As long as ya have a target weight,say 50 pounds. Makes it quite interesting.:cool2:
I have a 48 gallon tool box. It is the type that goes under a semi trialer and it lockable to transporting and water sealed.
I added an extra livewell to my boat which is 55 gallon and it will pump fresh water in and also runs an recurculation pump with 2 jets, I'am also going to add an small regulated oxygen cylinder to add more pure oxygen to the tank. By pumping in fresh water in you can keep the water temp in the livewell close to the temp of waters the fish is use to. Most of us believe that running their aerators on the automatic timer was sufficient for as many fish our tanks can hold. Obviously, livewell design, size, and efficiency varies. Human variables and weather conditions, particularly water temperature, affect water quality and fish mortality. If the lake or river is over 75 degrees, it's impossible to keep the dissolved oxygen level in your livewell much over 5 or 6 ppm with no fish in it. By adding pure oxygen to the tank you can boost dissolved oxygen over 20 ppm, with just a few cents per hour to run. But there is danger issues with running pumps in oxygen enriched water. Any electrical device used in oxygen enriched environments must be certified specifically for use within oxygen enriched environments. The risk of ignition and fire is greatly enhanced when electricity is used improperly within oxygen enriched environments. My tank is set up so that I can pump fresh water to the bait tank and livewell to bring in fresh water and I would not run the recirculation pump when pure oxygen is introduced. Sorry so long.
i use a 100 gallon stock tank that i dont need to fill up to the top. no blues up here, so keeping 20 channels about averaging 4# has been no problem. thanks for the ice tip.... it is nice in that i can lift it in or out of my small boat no problem. just hook it up to a pump to pump in and then have a pump in the tank to pump out back to the river. good post here.
