Made a bad call

Fished a tourny Saturday at lay. Had about 21lbs at 11. Fish just looked beat up despite ice, g juice, running fresh water constantly, tourny rules said no dead fish. Called the tournament director to see if we could weigh early he said yes. We debated and debated and decided to run down the lake about 4 miles and hit 3 or 4 places then go weigh in. Upon arrival at our 4th place down the lake we checked the fish again and a 4lber was dead. Long story short we ended up weighing in at 1pm 1 and 1/2 hrs early with 19.05 after getting rid of the dead 4 lber. 19.52 won , the dead fish cost us $9,000.

Daaaaang. That'd be a tough pill to swallow

Dang 😳 That'll sting for a little while

That's tough right there.

Same thing happened to us in a Tensaw River tournament. Brand new boat with factory livewell and our 4 biggest fish died. Penalty for a dead fish was one pound per fish and our final weight after penalties was 2 ounces less than the first place bag. Turns out the livewell system was too weak to support that kind of bag of fish. We installed a bubbler system and a much more powerful water flow system with dual intake pumps and outlets. Never had a dead fish again.

That's tough Ben.

A 12 volt "bubbler" makes a ton of difference. I have one that I use when it's hot. I'm going to permanently install it one of these days.

Like dis: https://www.amazon.com/Marine-Metal-B15-aeration-Bubbles/dp/B000EYWNVQ

Lots of crappie tournament guys run these because White crappie are so hard to keep alive in a live well. They are much more effective than a water spray bar.

Fur is right. I saw the same thing happen on Lay in a BFL. The guy ended up getting a TH Marine PROAIRE. He never lost another fish. I got one too and it made a huge difference. Believe it or not. Ice beats them up and can do more damage than not.

We have ozygenators in the live wells. I think the fish were just too weak and beat up from spawning then add the rough lake into the mix. I know of several boats who lost fish . This is the first time I have had one die in 3 years.

Chalk it up as lesson learned brother. I'm sure that lesson stings though. You'll get em next time.

Tough luck there

Ouch

A bird in hand is worth $9000.00 dollars. Bought whit is the best whit you can buy you just buy it a day late

I was fishing a local big fish TX one Friday night and caught a LM that weighed 4.8. This was Middle of June. Water HOT as hell. I put the fish in the livewell and ran straight to LBM and got a bag of ice and dumped the whole bag in the well. Fish survived, but I got beat another one that weighed 5.14. Still got second place.

I’m sure they were stressed. Might not have been any saving them. I know some crappie guys in MS that run oxygen to their livewells and bait tanks with a bubbler. I’d try that before calling it done

About all you can do is keep them cool. I can't even remember the stuff I used to use that helped keep alive. Very seldom had a dead one.

What’s the general consensus for folks on here? I seem to do better by starting with cool water and recirculating it all day, keeping it cool as I go versus pumping in fresh water all day. To me, the latter just seems like you’re continuously pumping in hot surface water. Seems even worse if you caught your fish deep, but I know some guys that swear by that method too.

Buddy of mine fished a tournament Saturday and had the same thing happen to him. He said he started out with recirculating the water with frozen bottles of water in the livewel with rejuvenatel. He said he added water around 11 by 12 all 5 fish were dead. He was mad today at work, he said he has never had that problem before. He had 19-20 lbs, only took 15 lbs to win, He took a pic and gave them to his neighbor.

Dang....hopefully he tasted good.

It's not even hot hot yet.

Water temp up in a creek that I fished in Sunday afternoon on Guntersville was 88 degrees. That's pretty warm.

87.5-89 on Weiss this weekend too.

I start my day with ice in the livewells and use that as my water and just recirculate adding ice as need. It seem easier to maintain versus pumping hot water all day. Just my opinion.