I see all the other keeping fish alive post so here is a good one that I have done a bunch and it works. When you catch a good fish in deep water sometimes there swim bladders with inflate due to the decrease in pressure as you pull them to the surface. and some times they biuld up gases in the live well . But they will become a floater and will have plenty of life but they just sit there and float. Before I found this out I had seen alot of fish die due to this. Here is what you need 10-14 gauge needle preferably an IV needle. Now there are 2 places you can fizz from the first and to me the easiest on a big large mouth is rite above the throat. Insert the needle 1/8 th of an inch place the fish under water and watch for bubbels to let you know your in the air blader. Once you see the bubbels you can sorta massage the swollen swim blade to help force out the air.
The second place and this works better on small mouth is lay the dorsel fin flat and at the tip of the fin layed flat insert the needel about the same amount.
This all takes practice to figure out but do it you can't do anything but help a fish that is floating. Also sometimes I have found that if you have fizzed a good bass and she still wont go down, I have taken a big pole 15ft or so and push her down with it , some times this take a couple tries but it can help her re-balance her blader due to the pressure change. I have got some really good fish to live using these tips. It just suck to watch a 8 lb fish float and die. here is a really good link to bass's web site and there guide to fizzing we lamanated these and gave them to our club members and just about everyone has a needle on them. So give this a try next time. http://sports.espn.go.com/outd...edure
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