Oxygenator for livewell?

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Who runs one in their livewell, is it worth it ($60)? Do you notice a significant difference in fish liveliness on release?

Had a my first fish die on me today, a big smallie, and had another not looking too strong on release. It cost me a check but really I just hated to see such a nice fish go down.

I ran a recirc and used ice and water treatment but it didnt help them. I did get them from 22-24 fow but that doesnt seem outrageously deep.

[mww24]

I had a little largemouth die in the last 5 minutes of a tourney. The next tourney I made sure to pump fresh water in more often instead of just recirculating. Had two stay alive for 7 hours. I did use treatment twice when I was recirculating. But I think bringing in a lot of fresh water helped most. Sometimes there going to die. It happens and no one likes it but it is the nature of the beast. tournaments have mortality rates.

[kaine]

i have had an oxygenator in my old boats but in my new one i dont with ice and rejuvenade i dont notice a difference. i had the same problem yesterday i didnt have any die but we had to constantly check them about every 5 minutes and keep flipping them over. a few other people fishing the tourney had problems too. we were also fishing deep, 16-20+ feet but the surface temps weren't that bad plus we used ice and some rejuvenade. i'm not sure it was an oxygen or temp issue. the fish were obviously shocked, but we had alot of foam build up in the livewell and before we added the rejuvenade the water turned red, like the fish were bleeding but none were throat or gil hooked. i know they sprayed for weeds a few days ago on the lake we were on. to me it almost seemed like the quality of water we were pumping into our livewells wasn't as clean as the water they were living in.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Thanks for the heads up kaine. I didn't hear others had similar issues. Something was going on that day. The LM we caught were good but the smallies not so much.

Maybe ill skip the oxygenator, save my pennies (lots of them) and get sweet rig like yours.

[Cecil]

We had fish acting funky in the livewell on Sunday too. But didn't lose any. I would like to get a coolwell system over an oxygenator...

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Koolwell is a neat idea, looked into it and there are homemade instructions for cheaper out there. I dont have a bass boat so I dont have a cooler right next to my livewell for ice bags.

[st.crioxfishin]

Same thing here this weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday our fish were acting weird in the livewell. All of our fish that were caught deep sat on their sides for most of the day in the livewell, once we released them, they swam off just fine...

[Cecil]

Same here Bob. Had to check on them a lot to ease my mind!