Tournament Question

How do you keep your fish alive during a tournament till weigh in ? Especially in this heat !!!

At the MS. C.c Fruit Jar tourneys you can weigh in dead or alive.

You can't! That is why there generally aren't any tournaments in August, except for our fruit jar tournaments, and they don't have to be alive for those tournaments. Most tournament schedules run from October through May or June.

Ice bottles and oxygen.

Satdoc1, What's the best way to create oxygen ? Air stone and a pump ?

We have an oxygen set up on the live wells. It consists of an O2 bottle and regulator. Pumps straight O2 in the livewell but it is still hard to keep them alive in this heat. We have also tried to poke a hole in the fish to let the air out of the bladder and helps sometimes.

Torch, do you put an air stone on the end of the line ? Also where did you get that set up ?

Satdoc bought it online. Google it. It has a stone on one end of line.

Its a special oxygen diffusing stone Sweetwater Aquatic or Eco systems.

In order of effectiveness:

1) 02 injection

2) Cooling water with Ice - Calms the fish and cool water absorbs O2 more readily.

3) Livewell additive - tried some Tournament Ice the other day. Worked good, but haven't made up my mind 100% yet.

4) Fizzing or weighting fish caught deep will help as well.

In a perfect world, you'd have 02 injected into a livewell that is on recirc with no new water coming in and drop ice bottles in there occassionally to lower the temp by about 10 degrees. Add 1/3 to 1/2 fresh water every 3 hours since amonia will build as the fish breath and waste is deposited. In addition, add an additive of your choice. If your fish are coming out of deep water, then fizzing their air bladder will help them survive or weighting their anal fin with clip on weights to keep them upright until their air bladder deflates.

Wannabe...