Originally Posted by
catch5
Yes guys are just clueless or don’t really care that much about Fish care. I’ve ran tournaments and weigh ins for 20 years and the lack of Thought that goes into Fish care is ridiculous. Especially when our numbers of bass are down so bad in our lakes right now. Guys just have this mind set that they can throw these fish in the livewell, put the livewells in auto, and all is well. Sure you can get away with that in the spring when it’s cool, but from postspawn through summer it requires more than that. The simplest thing guys just refuse to do is run their pumps on manual or constant. They want to run them on a timer. For the life of me when it’s hard to keep these things alive give me one good reason to run them in auto. There isn’t, yet guys just continue to do it.
Myself I personally ice the water down, monitor livewell temps, add my g-juice or whatever chemicals you like, plug the overflow and run your recirculating pumps on Manual non stop as soon as the first fish goes in. I also added the VT-2 vents and they seemed to make a huge difference as well. If I get five in a team tournament I use both livewells and do the same for both to try and new them alive as best I can. Spread them out so they have more oxygen.
Guys also need to learn how to fizz Fish. I’d venture to say over 90% of the guys have no idea how or when to do it. I walk down to the ramp after every tournament and have to do some. Fizz em and they swim right off.