KEEPING BASS ALIVE
OXYGENATED LIVE WELLS INCREASE SURVIVAL OF TOURNAMENT RELEASED BASS
American Fisheries Society Interactive Black Management Workshop held February 10, 2006 in San Antonio, Texas
The purpose of this AFS workshop, “Anglers and Biologist Working Together To Make Fishing Better For You.”
In open forum, a panel of prominent State fishery experts representing Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and North Carolina all were ask 2 questions regarding what they and their State Fish Hatchery Directors considered a safe oxygenation range for live black bass transports. Their post release survival rates are excellent, so what do they do that is so different than tournament bass fishermen and tournament directors when they transport live black bass in order to insure a safe, healthy transport environment for live captive bass and maximum post release survival. What’s is really so different about how the experts transport live bass vs. how tournament bass fishermen and tournament directors transport live captive bass?
The difference is: the experts administer pure oxygen continuously while live bass are in captivity being transported, bass fishermen and tournament directors that are not willing to provide the best bass care possible will only provide aeration (air) for the catch which is less than the best bass care possible as defined by these State Fish Hatchery experts.
The panel of fishery experts:
Phil Durocher, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Director Inland Fisheries
Fred Harris, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission
Tim Morrison, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries
Mark Oliver, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
Q. What type aeration system do you use when you transport live black bass to insure safe dissolved oxygen saturations in transport tank water and prevent hypoxia?
A: We DO NOT EVER use any mechanical aeration devices or air to insure safe oxygenation during live bass transports anytime. We use only pure oxygen, (LOX) liquid oxygen or compressed oxygen for all live fish transports exclusively.
Q. When your hatchery staff is transporting mature live bass with pure oxygen, what do you consider safe oxygen saturation range and what are your oxygen requirements for all your live bass transports?
A: We require a minimum dissolved oxygen DO saturation of 100% to 15 ppm DO supersaturation to be maintained continuously while the bass are in captivity being transported through final release.
All these fishery experts require the continuous administration of pure oxygen for all live bass transports to prevent hypoxia and deadly cascading effects anaerobic metabolism. Conscientious live bass transporters are very concerned about post release survival and secondary disease caused by prolonged hypoxic transports because unlike tournament bass fisherman, their job and pay check depends on their success. Their bass don’t die in the transport tank and thrive after final release.
These State Fishery experts do provide the best bass transport care possible and back it up with their actions. When pure oxygen is not provided during transports, intentionally withheld, by anglers for bass boat livewells all day and or tournament directors in weigh-in holding tanks and live release boat livewells, be assured the quality of live bass care they are willing to provide is certainly LESS THAT THE BEST BASS CARE POSSIBLE, and that’s easy to recognize when you know what to look for. Look for the oxygen tanks. It’s very easy to see which anglers and which tournament directors are not willing to provide the best bass care possible, they will be using mechanical aerators and water pumps in their release boat livewells and weigh-in holding tanks.
(Systems providing pure oxygen advance tournament fish care technology to State-of-the-Art) A turn-on-and-forget livewell oxygenation system that works exceptionally well in the summer. Click Here: Gilliland's Ultimate Fish Care System
Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation fishery biologist and B.A.S.S. Federation angler, Gene Gilliland has researched tournament-related delayed mortality for several years (B.A.S.S. Times, Feb. 1993 and July 1998 & Bassmaster Magazine, July/August 2000). Gilliland found that good weigh-in technique was not enough, especially in hot weather. "All that first-aid at weigh-in won’t help fish that have been mistreated in the boat all day," he says. Click Here: "Fish Friendly" Weigh-In Setup
He noted that most tournament anglers assume their boat’s live well system will do an adequate job of keeping their catch alive. "Maybe so in the spring, but it takes a great deal more than that to keep fish healthy during summer tournaments. Better management of live well water quality is essential," says Gilliland. "With a little extra effort, anglers can reduce delayed mortality to less than 25%."
Unfortunately, that extra effort is the snag. Why? To most tournament anglers who have weighed-in, loaded their boats and gone home, delayed mortality is out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Gilliland observed, "They don’t see dead fish, don’t realize there is a problem, so they don’t see the need to do anything differently."
Gilliland knew the best fish care system would be one that was truly "set-it-and-forget-it." The Oxygen EdgeÔ is easy on the fish and easy on the angler. Fishery management agencies and commercial hatchery operations routinely provide oxygen to fish during transport. Why not provide this same level of life support in a bass boat live well during a tournament?
Gilliland contacted Oxygenation Systems of Texas, makers of The Oxygen Edge™, and offered to give it an unbiased scientific evaluation under extreme summer conditions, when the problems with delayed mortality are the worst.
The tests were conducted at a lake in southern Oklahoma during the blistering summer of 1998. Air temperatures ranged from 78 degrees each morning to as much as 108 degrees in the afternoon. Tournament conditions were simulated using Gilliland’s personal bass boat, with The Oxygen Edge™ system aboard. Bass were caught and placed in the boat’s live well for each 8-hour trial and either continuous flow-through aeration or pure oxygen was provided to the fish. After each trial, the fish were kept for six days in special holding nets designed for tournament mortality research. Click Here: Oxygenation vs. Aeration Test Results
Biologists consider oxygen levels below 3 parts per million (ppm) as lethal. Considering that tournament-caught fish are highly stressed from hooking, landing, handling and holding in live wells, oxygen concentrations below 6 or 7 ppm could be potentially dangerous. Oxygen levels in the test boat live well during the aeration-only trials ranged from 7 ppm down to a near-lethal 4 ppm. Gilliland stressed, "minimum oxygen levels are what is really important, rather than average or peak levels. A high value and a low value may average out to something in between, but if it persisted long enough, that low oxygen level may have killed the fish!" Click Here: Flow Through Aeration Does Not Provide Enough Oxygen
During The Oxygen Edge™ trials, the oxygen levels peaked at over 22 ppm, with minimums of no less than 8 ppm even when oxygen-poor lake water was added to flush waste ammonia and carbon dioxide from the live well. Click Here: Compressed Oxygen Absolutely Prevents Tournament Fish Suffocation in All Bass Boat Live Wells Every Summer.
The results of the experiments were very encouraging. As was the case in Gilliland’s previous research, mortality of bass that were held in live wells using aeration-only was around 22%. Recirculating and aerating ice-cooled water and adding salt reduced the mortality to 18%. Delayed mortality of bass held in the oxygenated live well was only 7%! Gilliland emphasized that mortality values would vary slightly from test to test, location to location. "The point is that adding oxygen significantly reduced the mortality rate of bass compared to other recommended methods. Twenty percent more healthy bass were returned to the lake when oxygen was bubbled into the live well." Click Here: Average Delayed Mortality of Bass Following Eight Summer Tournaments: Live Well Aeration, Ice, Salt & Recirculation vs. Simply Adding Compressed Oxygen Only into Live Well Water.
Adding pure oxygen with a system like The Oxygen Edge™, cooling the water slightly, adding non-iodized salt and live well conditioners like Catch-and-Release™ are currently the state-of-the-art. That’s the best an angler can do. Using this system, anglers can reduce the mortality associated with summer tournaments to the levels typically seen in springtime events (on average, less than 10%). Gilliland feels that such levels are probably not harming bass populations and a significant reduction in the summer would go a long way towards eliminating the negative image that tournament-related fish kills give bass tournaments.
"However," Gilliland notes, "oxygenation systems are the BEST option tournament anglers have for keeping their catch healthy in the summer." "For only a few hundred dollars, how can any tournament angler justify not using something that will conserve our bass fishing resources for the future and reduce the negative perceptions that others have of the sport? Click Here: The Ultimate Live Well Compressed Oxygen System for Tournament Catch & Release Fishing
For more information on live well operation and weigh-in procedures contact Gilliland at the Oklahoma Fishery Research Lab, 500 E. Constellation, Norman, OK 73072; 405-325-7288 mailto:ggillokla@aol.com
As shocking as it is in reality, sometimes professional bass tournament fishermen (Michael Iaconelli) choose not even to provide air, much less pure oxygen for his catch as he demonstrated to the public and media in the 2006 Bassmaster Classic tournament in Florida. Tournament bass suffocated in his bass boat livewell in February when the water is cold in Florida. Poor choices of tournament bass care on a bass boat can be very expensive for anglers fishing for money and sponsorships.
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