oxygen for bass

[dmd]

does anyone know what the best oxygen level is for bass.

[Guest Author]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jul-05-06 AT 06:19PM (EST)[/font][p]I had the opportunity to fish in a tournament on old hickory a few weekends ago and the boater I fished with had a great system for keeping fish alive in hot weather. He used a Pro-Air system, that just provided oxygen to the fish and not hot water.
First you fill your livewells up with water, than add a bag or more in each livewell. Put the livewell on re-circulate. That way not hot water is brought into the livewell. The pro-air is an air pump that puts oxygen into the livewell. Just like an aquarium air pump. The water has plenty of oxygen and the water remains alot cooler. Should you need to run you areators it will only re-circulate the cool water and not add the hotter water from the lake. I installed one in my boat and fished a tournment this weekend, my five fish were very lively when
we weighed them in. And the Pro-air uses MUCH less power to run
all day than 30 minutes of running the areators....The only draw back is the unit is price, around $75.00. Good Luck

[BassBest]

Under 4ppm is lethal, 7-10 is comfortable for a calm bass, after stress of catch and livewell indurance bass need twice their comfort amount to make up for the stress. Read more here:
www.oxyedge-chum.com/tournament_

mortality_bass,_crappie_&_walleye.htm - 23k

A bass will go into near lethal O2 levels if needed though, say around 3-5 ppm, and may stay a while.

Elijah Orr
Kentucky Lake Bass Club
Asst. TD
270-354-5285
[email protected]

[dmd]

hey bassbest-that was a very good article. It seems we are losing a lot more fish in tournaments than most people realize.

[BassBest]

Yes, we are losing more than we realize, I released the fish in the last Angler's Choice Ky Lake div., and we had a 6.89lb LM, and three others over 4lbs go on us. At first I wondered the kind of treatment they were or weren't getting from the people who caught them, this was our biggest loss this year, we assumed it was the swim bladder since the tx was early june, but when we went to give lessons on bleeding the bladder, we noticed the bladder was not the problem, so I assume it was an oxygen problem after that. I'm not sure if all dead fish came from the same boat but I will say that all fish were alive at the time of weighin except for the 6.89. Actually, the fish were alive when put in the holding tank after weighing them but did not have enough essentials to regain life even with the high O2 in the tank, we worked with them for 45 minutes I know.
That is just one circuit, think of all the other ones out there night and day and the numbers will rise. I do realize that some are very good at keeping fish alive, but accidents and bad days do happen. Also count in the gut hooks, we had two go in one tx for that problem, they were just over 2 lbs but that does not matter. If a fish is caught shallow to begin with, the swim bladder is not a problem, but O2 is, and as long as there is an aerator(spelling?) working properly all is ok, but the ledge fish need to be worked slowly to the top and bled when neccessary, maybe more than once. This is a problem that has been going on forever, but we will eventually overcome it for the most part, hopefully soon. When I saw that big momma slowly fall to her death, I devoted my time thereafter to ensure the safty of the bass as much as I could no matter what. I believe that teaching our younger kids to fish should be second to teaching them how to keep the fish alive.

Elijah Orr
Kentucky Lake Bass Club
Asst. TD
270-354-5285
[email protected]

[Moose1am]

Bass caught in deep water 20ft or deeper that are brought up to the surface too fast will suffer from the Bends. Air bubbles will out gases from their blood stream into the blood vessels. The same thing can happen to scuba divers that come up to the surface too fast. You should never come up faster than the smallest air bubbles. Fish too have to decompress on the way back to the surface. They undergo a 1 ATM (760 mm HG or 29" Hg) water pressure change when you take them out of 33ft deep water to the surface. And you deprive them of the needed oxygen when you haul them out of the water. Not only that but water at 20ft deep is much colder than the surface waters in the summer months. You may have a 15 deg F temp difference or even 20 deg . Gas expands as it gets heated so you are really putting the hurt on deep caught bass in the summer months.

There needs to be more research on how this effects the fish after releasing them in the hot summer months.

To decompress a scuba diver the either have to dive back down into the depths or be put into a chamber under higher pressure and then slowly the pressure is released until they are back at normal atmospheric air pressure. To do this to a fish would require putting a weight on the fish to put it back down to 20 to 30ft deep water and then have the string attaching the fish to the weight dissolve after 30 minute to release the fish. They use dissolvable sutures in surgery these days and I know that there are ropes or strings of some type that dissolve in sea water after a while. I have seen the shows on TV where they attach a critter cam to a great white shark and it eventually is released from the shark's back after the material has dissolved in the sea water. This could be easily used after a bass fishing tournament along with some weights to put the fish back down into deep water so that they can decompress over time and then be released.

The air bladders only hold so many molecules of air and that only can change when more molecules out gases from the bladder and dissolve into the small capillaries that surround the inside membrane of the fish's air bladder. Air is exchanged from the blood stream in and out of the fish's air bladder or swim bladder. Fish use the air bladder to remain at a neutral buoyancy. Without it they will either rise or sink in the water column. Pressure acts on the fish in all directions. Increased depth means increased water pressure on the fish's body. High pressure on the fish makes gases dissolve into the blood stream. If you release the pressures on the fish the gas can go out of solution and into a gas phase again.

Also cool or cold liquids hold much more dissolved gases. So if you cool the water down in the live well the fish's blood stream can hold more dissolved oxygen as well as the water in the live well.

Please guys don't stick needles in the fish to pop the swim bladders. That may kill the fish and introduce more bacteria into the fish's system. These bacteria once they enter the body cavity can multiply and kill the fish from the inside. The toxins that the bacteria release will kill the fish for sure if you get bacteria inside the fish's body cavity. Besides it won't help to pop the swim bladder in most cases.

If you can release a fish asap and it's able to swim back down to 20ft then it may be OK. But it's hard for a fish to get back down to the depths in hot water months and it may need a little help. The faster the fish is put back into the deep water where it came from the better for the fish's survival.

Now if your catching your fish in shallower water then this may not be a problem. And if you catch big fish in the wintertime the colder water temps helps the fish survive this trauma. As cold water will let the fish survive easier the great pressure changes.

Charles law is all about how increased temp increases the air pressure of gases.

Boyle's law is about gas volumes shrinking as the pressure increases on the gas.

Both the laws of nature are important when you talk about the blood gases in the fish and the air bladders volume and it's buoyancy.

Regards,

Moose1am

[plowboy]

Your a good fellow BassBest. Keep up the good work.

[DJD]

I'll second that comment, good job BB. I know many guys who could care less about the fish and they fish all the time. Good to see someone else cares....

[dcbasser]

Anything other suggestions on making sure tournament fish survive afterwards. Hate to see a fish not survive especially when so many enjoy catching and work so hard to do so. How about all the chemicals they have come out with to put in livewells, have never used any just wondering do they help and which are best? I here a lot about it in the summer time.

[kc]

It is interesting to read about people aware of bass mortality with tournament fishing. The best thing that can be done is to not hold tournaments during the summer. Several posts here explain far better than I ever could as to what a bass is up against being caught in the hot months and surviving being held for hours, weighed in, and finally released. Larger fish (which are the one we want to protect the most) are the first to die. Study after study shows that even when the bass swim off after the weigh-in in warm water conditions up to 70% will die within a few days.

I caught a 4 lb smallmouth last week end at night out of 6 - 8 feet of water, did my usual of unhooking her quickly and putting her in the live well so she could revive and calm down a bit while I finish fishing the spot. About 10 minutes later I quickly measured and weighed her and she was not out of the water more than a minute or two and she wanted to roll on me when released. After working with her for a couple of minutes beside the boat she finally swam off and I only hope I didn't kill her. No way would she have survived a tournament experience. Fish have a hard time surviving the rigors of being caught when the water is warm and their best shot at survival is immediate release. I pray that tournament anglers will one day get the message and only hold tournaments during more favorable times.

kc

[Danny]

I'm shocked!!! you were fishing in this hot weather, with the hot water? You almost killed that big old small mouth, and probably with delayed mortality, you did, all for your own fun!!!!

Just messing with you dude... but that is simply put the message you put forth with the idea of no summer tournaments.

That idea won't fly, ever.

What I would love to see is to first of all, do away with culling. If you decide to keep a fish, it's yours for the tournament.

I'd also support smaller limits, especially in hotter months.

Imagine a three fish limit for tournaments in the summer, and NO CULLING!!!

OK, maybe I'm supporting the smaller limit in hopes I could finally weigh a limit...LOL

Another thing is the chemical additives. Uncle Lee's has started carrying Please Release Me, just because I have asked them to. If I do ever keep a fish in the live well, I make sure I put in the chemicle, tournament or not.

Also, don't fill your livewell until you catch a fish to go in it, and don't put your fish in the dry livewell untill you get enough water in there for it to be covered. Then make sure to completely fill your livewell.

I love to see everyone sharing ideas to save our fish. I really like the frozen bottles of water. I usually keep a couple of frozen bottles of drinking water in my cooler on the boat, just so I'll have some cold water left after all the ice melts. I never thought about carrying a couple extra for the livewell. So thanks for the idea.

Danny

[kc]

I agree with you Danny. I know I have come across pretty militant on tournaments but I am trying to get the point across that there is a major detrimental effect of all of this rampant tournament fishing and the quality of our bass fishing. Anything we could do in the warmer months to kill less bass via tournament fishing would be a step forward. I realize that T fishing is not going to end in the summer any less than I am going to quit recreational fishing in the warm water but again any step towards reducing the number of tournaments or reducing the number of bass kept/killed is a step in the right direction. This is a good thread and more power to those who are trying to do the right things.

kc