Dead,dying,sloppy live bait is common this summer, it’s not cheap

[Benton B]

Live bait is not cheap whether you buy it or catch it. Most fishermen say they never have bait problems in the summer because that have bought a new $200 bait tank, for that price not 1 bait should die or get the red-nose in August.
Some fishermen will admit that they do have summer problems with their live bait, it dies too quick, gets red-nose and gets lethargic in the bait tank and is not very good bait.

Just to be clear, bait tank and livewell are the same thing. Here’s what a functional livewell really is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livewell If that bait tank or livewell is not keeping your bait alive and Healthy all day… it is Not Functional.

Keeping bait alive and healthy all day in the summer, whether you are use a high dollar $200 super bait tank, ice chest or a 5 gallon plastic pickle bucket that Berger Kings gives away just for asking is all about your knowledge and ability to insure great water quality inside the bait box. Summer success is as simple and easy as maintaining excellent water quality.

The problem that kills and compromised live bait quality every summer is your poor water quality, that’s all.

This is all there is to keeping live bait alive and healthy all day every summer regardless of the brand, type, or what you use for a bait tank or livewell.

1. Oxygenated: maintaining minimal safe dissolved oxygen saturation levels is the most important. Low oxygen (hypoxia) kills and causes brain damage in seconds and minutes in livewells.

2. Ventilated: water must be flushed and cleaned of toxins (second most important). Metabolic toxins (dissolved CO2, acid pH, ammonia, nitrites) take hours and days to reach toxic levels that kill in livewells.

If you will and if you really know how to maintain minimal safe dissolved oxygen saturation and refresh your livewell water a couple times daily in the summer you too can have healthy live bait all day, all night or a week… every summer.

You can overstock your bait tank in the summer and keep live bait healthy and alive with the right bait tank equipment. This is the same equipment that hatcheries use to haul live shiners to bait shops in the summer and keep them alive and healthy during hours of overland transport. They never have any problems with excessive fish kills in the summer, but they know how to keep the bait alive and healthy in their haul tanks.

If you won’t or can’t insure minimal safe bait tank water quality, you will fail to keep live bait healthy (red-nose) or alive till noon in the summer.

Try this - Google: “livewells,bait tanks and water quality” Learn how the real professional live bait transporters haul live bait fish and keep their bait healthy in the summer.

Fishery science and fishery facts are all about the vital importance of bait tank water quality. Learn new professional ways to insure excellent water quality and keep your bait alive and healthy in bait tanks every summer… those predictable hot July-August live bait problem are really fixable, but if you can’t manage you bait tank water quality you will certainly have dying and crappy live bait every summer.

If you have no bait problems this summer, that's great!

[Benton B]

Live bait is not cheap whether you buy it or catch it. Most fishermen say they never have bait problems in the summer because that have bought a new $200 bait tank, for that price not 1 bait should die or get the red-nose in August.
Some fishermen will admit that they do have summer problems with their live bait, it dies too quick, gets red-nose and gets lethargic in the bait tank and is not very good bait.

Just to be clear, bait tank and livewell are the same thing. Here’s what a functional livewell really is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livewell If that bait tank or livewell is not keeping your bait alive and Healthy all day… it is Not Functional.

Keeping bait alive and healthy all day in the summer, whether you are use a high dollar $200 super bait tank, ice chest or a 5 gallon plastic pickle bucket that Berger Kings gives away just for asking is all about your knowledge and ability to insure great water quality inside the bait box. Summer success is as simple and easy as maintaining excellent water quality.

The problem that kills and compromised live bait quality every summer is your poor water quality, that’s all.

This is all there is to keeping live bait alive and healthy all day every summer regardless of the brand, type, or what you use for a bait tank or livewell.

1. Oxygenated: maintaining minimal safe dissolved oxygen saturation levels is the most important. Low oxygen (hypoxia) kills and causes brain damage in seconds and minutes in livewells.

2. Ventilated: water must be flushed and cleaned of toxins (second most important). Metabolic toxins (dissolved CO2, acid pH, ammonia, nitrites) take hours and days to reach toxic levels that kill in livewells.

If you will and if you really know how to maintain minimal safe dissolved oxygen saturation and refresh your livewell water a couple times daily in the summer you too can have healthy live bait all day, all night or a week… every summer.

You can overstock your bait tank in the summer and keep live bait healthy and alive with the right bait tank equipment. This is the same equipment that hatcheries use to haul live shiners to bait shops in the summer and keep them alive and healthy during hours of overland transport. They never have any problems with excessive fish kills in the summer, but they know how to keep the bait alive and healthy in their haul tanks.

If you won’t or can’t insure minimal safe bait tank water quality, you will fail to keep live bait healthy (red-nose) or alive till noon in the summer.

Try this - Google: “livewells,bait tanks and water quality” Learn how the real professional live bait transporters haul live bait fish and keep their bait healthy in the summer.

Fishery science and fishery facts are all about the vital importance of bait tank water quality. Learn new professional ways to insure excellent water quality and keep your bait alive and healthy in bait tanks every summer… those predictable hot July-August live bait problem are really fixable, but if you can’t manage you bait tank water quality you will certainly have dying and crappy live bait every summer.

If you have no bait problems this summer, that's great!

Found a real cheap solution to this summer problem --- use live goldfish, the don't die.

[cricket george]

shhhhh, dont tell

[cricket george]

Benton B - you are spot on.

[ibmack]

even better, use jigs - they never die and require zero labor, zero additional costs, and much less time rebaiting

[Benton B]

even better, use jigs - they never die and require zero labor, zero additional costs, and much less time rebaiting

Fishermen that might try but cannot keep bait alive in a bait tank have only 1 option left - artificial plastic bait.

Shiner dealers have no problems keeping shiners alive for days. hatcheries transport thousands of excellent live healthy shiners on highways all day long and the hauler sell those live shiners to many bait shops all day on his delivery route week after week. Those shiners do not get red-nose, sick or even die after being hauled all day to bait shops in July or even in the Dog Days of August. The bait dealer sells those same shiners to fishermen daily over the next week or so. The bait dealer bags the shiners up in a plastic bag with a little water and a little oxygen and the bait last for hours in that bag until the fisherman opens the bag and dumps the shiners into his bait bucket... then the shiners take a serious turn for the worst. Things get real bad real quickly, all you live shiner fishermen know the routine from there on.

Meat hunters say good healthy live bait draws more aggressive strikes and catches more fish in the summer when the lake water gets hot.

There is plenty of room on the lake or river for both types of fishermen, fisherwomen and fisher-kids.

It's no big deal if you can't keep shiners alive in a bait tank in the summer, most fishermen can't keep then alive very long as soon as they take them out of the plastic bag and put them in them in their bait tank.

[deathb4disco]

The bait dealer bags the shiners up in a plastic bag with a little water and a little oxygen and the bait last for hours in that bag until the fisherman opens the bag and dumps the shiners into his bait bucket... then the shiners take a serious turn for the worst. Things get real bad real quickly, all you live shiner fishermen know the routine from there on.

If you fish with minnows, I think the best thing you can do is read a basic book on tropical aquarium fish. You will learn how to keep fish alive.

[catchNgrease]

I was surprised that water temperature of the bait tank is not mentioned. I am interested on what your thoughts are on oxygen levels versus temperature change.

[deathb4disco]

I am interested on what your thoughts are on oxygen levels versus temperature change.

Temperature change kills a lot of fish. It's one of the first things you learn from a basic aquarium book. Oxygen is probably #2.

[Benton B]

Temperature change kills a lot of fish. It's one of the first things you learn from a basic aquarium book. Oxygen is probably #2.

Here’s some interesting reading materials published by experts.

A Fish Farmer's Guide to Understanding Water Quality https://www.extension.purdue.edu/ext...as/as-503.html
LaDon Swann, Department of Animal Sciences
IIlinois-Indiana Sea Grant Program
Purdue University

Oxygen
Dissolved oxygen (DO) is by far the most important chemical parameter in aquaculture. Low-dissolved oxygen levels are responsible for more fish kills, either directly or indirectly, than all other problems combined. Like humans, fish require oxygen for respiration. The amount of oxygen consumed by the fish is a function of its size, feeding rate, activity level, and temperature. Small fish consume more oxygen than do large fish because of their higher metabolic rate. Meade (1974) determined that the oxygen consumption of salmon reared at 57 oF was 0.002 pounds per pound of fish per day. Lewis et al. (1981) determined that striped bass raised at 77 oF consumed 0.012-0.020 pounds per pound of fish per day. The higher oxygen requirement by striped bass may be attributed to the statement that the metabolic rate doubles for each 18o F increase in temperature.

Temperature
After oxygen, water temperature may be the single most important factor affecting the welfare of fish.

The environmental “steady state conditions” live fish live in very day is extremely different than the acute, extreme excitement and abnormal sustained stress the fisherman causes by capture and live transport (in a livewell)… sustained profound fear and adrenaline production is an automatic response resulting from the capture and confinement in a small livewell compares to a lake, pond or river, the mass stocking density, the excitement, the adrenaline production that increases metabolism and oxygen demand 10 fold in livewell captivity which is so different than the tranquil “steady state” lake, pond environment.

STRESS - Traumatic capture, livewell captivity, acute water quality changes is absolutely the worst day in that fish’s live… imagine all the adrenaline that fish produces trying to escape… until the adrenaline supply is exhausted, used up and finished. Then comes the dreaded cortisol production.
Fishermen cause max stress for fish in livewell captivity, let’s a closer look at what we cause and call “fish stress.”

Stress in Fishes: A Diversity of Responses with Particular Reference to Changes in Circulating Corticosteroids1 Stress in Fishes: A Diversity of Responses with Particular Reference to Changes in Circulating Corticosteroids

Don’t forget, the most severe stress for fish being transported in livewells is hypoxia and that stressor is deadly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia

It is absolutely vital that fisherman insure minimal safe dissolved oxygen saturations in livewells for all the fish confined in the livewell for the duration of transport and captivity.

How much oxygen is necessary in livewells? --- 100% DO Saturation whether the livewell contains only 1 fish or 500 fish. This is the DO is the standard required and used by every fish hatchery in the country. And the fish hatchery biologist are the real experts at transporting live fish and livewell water quality.