What is the best way to keep live bait fish looking healthy in a live well when fishing?
Big fishes eat small fishes, that’s its life circle. And that's precisely the reason why live bait is so vital for fishing.
As Jim Duckworth of Lebanon said, “Nothing catches fish like live bait but the trick is to keep it healthy”
To have a good sum of fishing keeping live bait alive and healthy is a crucial consideration. While you might manage to keep them healthy easily in winters, the summers make it a bit hard.
The living consideration of life on earth is oxygen. Summer is a month where oxygen levels are saturated considerably, making it harder for live bait to fight for their life. The right balance of water temperature is another element that plays a role in keeping live bait fish looking healthy.
But before we go to the methods that we should apply for this cause, we would like to revise our understanding of the live bait to properly understand and implement the methods.
What exactly is a live bait fish?
Live bait is a collection of fishes, worms, minnows, leeches, shrimps, and other living critters that attracts fishes to your hook.
The live bait is a fish’s actual prey which is why the fish are instantly attracted to it whereas the artificial lures aren’t that effective at grabbing the fish’s attention. Since fishes are most attracted by the smell, it's another reason why live bait is most loved by the fishermen
“The Live bait fish is a small fish that is used as prey by fishermen to catch big fish and level up their fishing game”
If under any circumstances, the live bait fish you catch remains unused, you can either return it to nature or freeze it till your next trip. However, this storage consideration isn't as lucrative as it seems and we feel like the time has finally come to explore the methods on how to keep live bait fish looking healthy.
Methods to Keep Love Bait Fish looking Healthy in a live well when fishing:
The methods listed below are not the only ones that can be applied but are the ones that are effective and easy to implement.
1: Properly Clean your Live well:
Live well is the most significant element of your fishing element. As a live well works by pumping fresh water, it's responsible for keeping water properly oxygenated and fresh for fish to breathe properly.
An Uncleaned, clogged, or obstructed live well is sure to disturb the proper circulation of water, therefore you must check if the live well is properly cleaned. Have an eye over the left debris of your previous dead bait, and look for weeds and other elements that might be dangerous for the fish's health.
Water circulation is important if you want to catch the best lot of fish, an obstruction minor to major is sure to affect the breathing of fish. This could lead to fish losing their scales without which they won’t be able to properly swim.
2: Maintain Proper Aeration:It's all about understanding Oxygen levels. Fish health is entirely dependent on the right amount of oxygen. Therefore we must understand and learn about the intake of oxygen by fish. Once this understanding is clear, then keeping the fish healthier becomes much easier.
If you are fishing at a higher temperature, the oxygen is most likely to dissolve which is good but its uncontrolled amount would make it difficult for the fish to survive. To tackle this, you would be required to induce pure oxygen. It can be introduced by regulating the water flow or through an air stone.
The air stone works by producing tiny oxygen-filled bubbles to circulate the oxygen around the fishes. This way they oxygenate the water and keep the fish healthy.
3: Avoid Fish Stress:Fish is under stress when its unable to properly perform their metabolic functions because it's placed in conditions which are ahead of the normal level of fish tolerance. The factors that caused fish stress are biological, chemical, physical, and procedural.
Biological Factors causing Fish stress in a live well are Population crowding, the existence of different species of fish in one tank that causes aggression, lateral swimming and competition for territory, Presence of microorganisms and microorganisms that can be pathogenic or exist in form of external or internal parasites
Chemical Factors causing Fish stress in a live well are low water quality, water with improper PH levels, polluted water containing chemicals like nitrogenous waste and metabolic waste, and amino acids.
Physical Factor causing Fish stress in a live well is water temperature imbalance meant which has a direct influence on the fish immune system, and broken glass that might enter into the live well during water circulation.
The procedural Factor causing Fish stress in a live well is the mishandling of fish.
4: Have a look over the water temperature:Water temperature is another important consideration in keeping live bait healthy in a live well. The rising temperature of water saturates the availability of oxygen which means fishes get active and start thriving to consume oxygen instantly.
Their attempt of getting more oxygen increases their movement and metabolism, which leads to the production of toxic waste. The more oxygen they consume, the more toxic waste is produced.
The production of waste changes the water acidity. If the live bait is kept in this water for a longer duration, the waste gets converted into dissolved toxins which are definitely not good for the bait’s health.
However, you would be glad to know that controlling this situation is easy. Just change the water, add some ice and you would be done.
5: Check out the water flow:Just as the water temperature is important for the normal breathing of live bait fish, the flow of water inside the live well is equally important. The water flows in a live well through the pump. This pump size varies from type to type.
Some live well come with pump sizes as small as 200 gallons per hour while some come with 1500 gallons per hour large pump size. However, choosing the pump size is dependent upon the amount of live bait fish you are carrying.
Yet, the more the water circulates through the live well, the more likely will the live bait stay healthy. This is because water is an integral part of fish life. It's not only a medium for them to swim but is also responsible for gas exchange.
The fish takes the oxygen through the gills and extract Carbon dioxide. This Carbon dioxide is considered waste and if its level rises inside the live tank, the fishes would struggle to survive. This is another reason why water flow is important.
6: Find the right Live well for your bait:The best way to keep your live bait fish alive is to give it proper housing. Therefore you must choose the right live well with the right water flow. Live wells that allow a greater amount of water can exhaust the fish whereas the less amount of water can bring it closer to death.
The required water flow depends upon the type of fish you have in your live well as some fishes perform well in large bodies of water while some are happy with low water as well.
A live well should be such that it provides a relaxed moving circle to the fish without it slamming its head into the corners again and again.
7: Batteries should be checked too:Live well is important from two aspects. The size of its water pump and the water flow it channels. The channeling of water flow depends on the battery power as it's responsible for running your pump.
Therefore, the battery of your live well should be of capacity to run the pump efficiently throughout your fishing journey and should not need recharging often. Thanks for reading the tips here. We know we might have loaded you with information that would be difficult to retain all and that's completely understandable. We have added essentials of live bait fish keeping which you might find helpful.
Have a look,
The Live Bait Fish Keeping Essentials:
Three factors play a major role in the maintenance of fish health
1. Proper Aeration
2. Water Temperature
3. Water Flow
If we look deep into these points, all of them highlight one element- The availability of Oxygen. No matter whatever the conditions are, if you want your fish to be healthy, then provide proper oxygen to it.
Below are the conditions that cause the fishes to thrive in a live well.
1. Overloading the live well which causes competition for survival inside the well. The fishes also don’t get an area to swim properly and keep on banging their heads
2. Not taking a portable pump or aerator on board that could fix the unavailability of oxygen
3. Keeping different fish species in one live well. This leads to population crowding and aggression inside the live well
4. Not changes the water as fishes produce metabolic waste that changes the acidity of water.
5. Not considering the live well size, water flow, and water purity. The habitat in the live well should ve closer to nature for keeping fish healthy
6. Not removing dead or injured bait and adding a new one
No matter if you are fishing on a beach, in freshwater or salt water, and whatever fish specie you are carrying, ensuring the oxygen availability can not be ignored in any case. The live bait fish is the most reliable way of grabbing bigger fish however if you follow the above-mentioned tips and tricks price, keeping them alive and healthy would not be a big problem anymore
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