To die so fast in the live wells at Grenada the past 3-4 weeks? Anyone have an educated answer ?
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To die so fast in the live wells at Grenada the past 3-4 weeks? Anyone have an educated answer ?
I would say the heat.
Get one of these things, check the temp of the well water and the fish as soon as it's caught.
Non-Contact Infrared Thermometer with Laser Targeting
Heat was not the issue, it werent hot. As far as what it was I dont have a clue, what few we caught stayed in good shape in the livewell with the pump running constant.
Can't figure it out!!! Know it was not the heat we frozen water bottles in livewell it was only the larger fish we had problems with (15 - 16)fish.the 13-14 in fish was fine.
The few we caught did fine.
It was hot here. The little bit I did, I was soaked with sweat.
" "pump running constant" "
Did you have air pumped in too?
Dirty live well.
While working at Capt. Bilbo's I had to maintain the live lobster tank. If one died and not removed in a few minutes I had to do a complete water change, clean the tank and filters. Labor and supplies for a water change was over $200.
Yep areator running constant, mid 80s aint hot, mid to upper 90s is hot. Water temps were around 80 and a little over as the day went on, water temp in the livewell around 70 or so.
Hard to say with such a small sample of fish. :). But ours didn't act right from the get go and went straight to cool water with straight o2 from a bottle to them. All of them wanted to keel over from the get go and came out of 5-7' of water. Not deep by any stretch. Surface temp was 85 on the lake...warm, but not hot. ???
Wannabe...
We had no problems keeping fish alive. We use one of the blue cube coolers on wheels with O2 set at 1/16th. On tournament days we attached clips to the fish to help them stay upright but on Thursday we kept 12 fish alive in the cooler withour the clips.
If it only happened on the bigger ones, then......quit catchin the bigguns, moron!!!! That's ur problem right there. duh!!!lol
I am not a pro by any stretch but fish usually die from either temp, pressure differences, lack of O2, improper handling, stress, or any combination there of. Get them in the box quickly with as little handling as possible make sure aeration is up to snuff not just recirculation from lake surface water. Hot water holds less O2, holding tanks are best when they are round and not square. Keep your hands clean and if you partner is ugly or looks hungry have them look away... :twocents:fishrotfl
The FEW fish we caught the week before died quick in the live well, but once we saw that, we put them on o2, and they did fine.
I bought one of those 110qt Igloo coolers from Sam's Club that has wheels and a retractable handle similar to the cube design only much larger. With the O2 setup, it's a nice live well on the rear deck, and has enough room for minners too.
What size weight, and what kind of clips do you use Hugh to hold the fish upright? Does that really help? I've never done that before.
These are clips you attach to the fins on the bottom of the fish and they make a big difference. One of the reason fish die after being caught is they use up all their energy trying to right them self in the livewell. They stress out and die.These clips keep the fish upright and they are able to release the air from their swim bladder. Some people use a neddle to bleed the air out but with the clips the fish is able to do it and you don't risk hitting the fish in the wrong spot with the needle. Google Flip Clip and check it out. Its a must have for tournament fishermen!
I have seen air release from the bladder of fish before but those were usually caught deep and the fish were vented prior to their release. Even the eye would pop out when they were brought to the surface. I though these fish were caught at around 7-10 ft of water. Would you need to vent a fish coming up from that shallow of a depth?
We did not have any problems. Fill the live well and put the 02 to them. I will say we did not have many volunteers for this study.:Rofl
I got no idea, never fished a tourney and never cared about keepin them alive. I put mine directly on ice and I have about a 2 hour drive home from the lake not counting the time it takes to get back to the ramp and load the boat and there has been a few times where I had a couple still movin when I got em out to clean em.
Wannabe put cyanide in there
Government shut down lol
How deep was they caught?Maybe they surfaced too fast!
I think 3/4 oz bill
I have a few ideas. For a little background information, I spent several years as a tropical fish retailer and a few years working for the country's largest wholesale tropical fish outlet. The company I worked for imported fish, both wild caught and captive raised, from around the globe on a daily basis. It was common to receive very expensive fish and coral from the South Pacific and the former USSR. I have a little experience in keeping fish alive.
Sudden death like you're describing could be suffocation, shock, lethal chemical, or some type of noxious algae or bacteria. Suffocation could be caused by low dissolved oxygen in the water but that doesn't make sense as the water's surface usually churns enough to keep it oxygenated. Even pumping surface water into the live well will oxygenate it enough to keep fish alive. Shock could be a big one. Higher water temps can fatigue fish and if they're at the thermocline, there could be a huge swing in water temp in a very short period of time. Fish do not adjust well to huge swings in temperature, at all. A sudden ten degree change could be enough to put a fish in shock and kill it. It's probably not some type of poison, as this happened to a number of fishermen. That being said, dead fish release highly toxic ammonia into the water and kill other fish. We would receive overseas shipments that would have 100% live fish in one bag and 100% dead fish in another. The culprit is usually one or more fish dying and killing off the lot. I suspect that's what was doing it. Finally, there could have been some type of toxic algae or bacterial bloom in the first few inches of water that killed everything. We'd experience this with red tide in Florida. It would kill everything. This type of studs usually creates some dead fish in the lake as we'll, though.