Dying fish in livewell...any suggestions?

[Fishin is life]

Sorry but your assuming that "Fizzing" a fish save them which I don't think is right. I've had a needle stuck into my back in order to draw out 1.5 liters of bloody fluid from my left lung. The procedure is called a "Thoracentesis".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoracentesis

But a Thoracentesis is performed by a trained Medical Doctor who knows the human anatomy so well that he can stick a long needle into your back and into your lung and not do any real lasting damage. But the human lung is not a swim bladder. And the needle and other equipment is sterilized before use. And the skin is disinfected of bacteria before they stick the needle though the skin in the back. They take care not to introduce bacteria into the body when they perform this Thoracentesis.

Let me tell you what it feels like to have a needle stuck into your back from the Patients point of view. It actually doesn't hurt at all until the next day. The pain of the needle going into your back is not that painful. Not what you would think. But the day afterwards you can barely take a breath. It hurts so bad that you need narcotics to ease the pain and they don't really work that good. You still hurt like He)). If I were a fish I would have died for sure.

The liquid that they remove from your lung is used to lubricate the plural lining that protected the outside of the lung from the inside of the chest cavity. The fluid in the plural space helps the lungs to slide easily inside the chest cavity. Without that fluid there is a lot more friction between the lungs and the chest cavity and it's extremely painful to breath. It takes more than 24 hours before the fluid builds back up in the plural space so that you can breath without pain again. You will hurt for at least a day. And you take in a lot of breaths during that 24 hour period.

The fish's swim bladder is covered with blood vessels that help to put air into the bladder though osmosis and take air out of the bladder. But that takes time and doesn't' happen very quickly. Damage to the air bladder will prevent it from filling back up. You ever try blowing up a balloon with a hole in it? The balloon fills with air only to leak the air out pretty fast.

Fish don't live in a sterile environment. There are all kinds of bacteria, virus and fungus living in the water with the fish. If you go poking an dirty needle into the fish's swim bladder you are going to introduce all kinds of disease causing organisms into the fish's body.

You may think that you are doing the fish a favor but you may just be introducing anthrax or some other bacteria deep into the fish's body. They fish may swim off and you may think you did a good deed by "fizzing" it but a day or two later the fish dies of toxins as the bacteria reproduce out of control inside the fish. Those are the the fish that you see floating in the lake two days after the tournament is over. They die and either float to the surface before later sinking to the depths or they wash up on the bank for all to see that next week.

If anything should be banned it "fizzing" and catching fish deeper than 10 ft.

I'm guilty of catching deep fish but those that I catch are mostly crappie and I take them home for the oven. They die for a purpose. Food for my family and friends.

I know you all mean well but think about what happens to a fish when you try to deflate the swim bladder with a dirty needle. You are not really helping the fish if it swims off and dies two days later.

We would be better off attaching a delayed release clamp to the fish and dropping it back down into the lake's 20 ft deep section to let the fish decompress from the bends.

Scuba divers that stay down too long and have blood that's saturated with compressed nitrogen gas have to go into a decompression chamber if they come up too soon before the nitrogen can get out of their blood steam. Gas under pressure will dissolved more gas molecules into the blood than at the surface. When you go down 33 ft you are under two (2) atmosphere of gas pressure. At the surface you are only under One (1) atmoshpere of gas pressure under normal conditions. One atmosphere of pressure is equal to 760 mm of Hg pressure or about 29" of pressure. You double that when you go down 33ft below the surface. And the increase in pressure on a fish or human is felt most when you get about ten feet down from the surface. That's about the depth that your ear drums start to want to pop if you don't equalize the pressure inside your head and ear canal with the water pressure. You have to push air from your lungs though the estacian tubes into your inner ear before the ear drums cave in from the water pressure on them. Ask any certified scuba diver and they will tell you the same thing.

To see what a bacterial infection can do to an animal just watch the discovery channel and look for the shows about the Venomous Komoto Dragons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon

These reptiles will bite a mammal and then let the bacteria in their saliva do the dirty work for them. The animal dies slowly over the next few days from a bacterial infection. The Dragon just has to follow the animal until it's dying in order to have a good meal. They are similar to a poisonous snake biting a big rate and then following the fleeing rats scent until it find the rat dying from the snake's venom.

These long drawn out posts that you've been making lately really have no point....You're saying I should'nt fizz a fish for this reason and that reason...If you're saying I shouldn't fizz it, then you're saying I should let it float on top of the water and watch it die...Reading your posts lately, you obviously think a lot more of yourself and your opinions than anybody else does

[raincheck]

Thats why i like CPR,the best thing too do with fish your not going too eat is let them go. http://youtu.be/TdCwtNPf3o4

[Duayne]

Lots of bait fishermen went through the oxygen injection deal. It does work as far as keeping the dissolved levels up and for some things it is essential. It also requires extra space and can be quite dangerous. But in the end, to keep regular bait alive, which are way more delicate that bass, a simple bubbler (just like in aquariums) will do the job. Cool the water some, add a little salt to help hold oxygen and calm the fish and run it full time (as they do not draw much at all) while you have fish in the well. The systems for boats are cheap, easy to install, and easy to maintain. It keeps oxygen levels up and the bubbles help remove harmful carbondioxide. Oxygen systems do not and it doesn't have to be that complicated.

[Moveon]

Fizzing may not work as proposed even though people mean well and think it's helping save the fish. Pretty simple.

[Fishin is life]

Fizzing may not work as proposed even though people mean well and think it's helping save the fish. Pretty simple.

They dang sure won't live floating belly up when released after a tournament because they can't keep themselves upright

[Moveon]

They dang sure won't live floating belly up when released after a tournament because they can't keep themselves upright

That's right! Maybe they die either way. What they need is a way to get back down where the pressure will decompress their swim bladder back to normal size for that depth.

Perhaps some kind of wire cage with a weight on it that has a quick release rope tied to it. You put your fish in the cage and lower it down to the depth where they were caught and then let them acclimate for a whil and then release them. That was what I think would work. But it would be a whole lot of trouble to do.

I read in the In -Fisherman book on Smallmouth Bass about catching deep water winter santurary small mouth bass. It seems that according to that book they congregate together in the deep water holes during the winter months. And a good fisherman who can locate them and catch them could catch a lot of them at that time of the year. But then at that time of the year the water's pretty cold and holds more Dissolved Oxygen. And the cold water and cold air helps to keep the air inside the fish at a lower pressure. Cold air is more dense and takes up less space than warmer air so their swim bladders won't inflate as much in the winter months. But by how much I don't know.

But I've seen some crappie who's eyes bugged out and swim bladders inflated big time after I caught then in 25 ft deep water in the hot summer months. I don't catch that may bass in deep water. But I may start catching more bass now that I have a better map of the lakes I fish. I know a lot of guys that fish for bass in the deep drops and report catching some big ones out of Bluegrass and Otter Pits.