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