Livewell 101 for Club Fishermen
John Gallaspy
You can greatly improve your fishing success by knowing more about oxygen, the life-supporting necessity for everything above and below the water.
It’s common to hear really experienced fisherman use the term D.O., or dissolved oxygen. But what does it mean? From a fisherman’s viewpoint, D.O. stands for the amount of dissolved oxygen in water. And it supports everything that lives there—from fish to vegetation to algae.
So where does all this important D.O. come from? One source is weed beds. Weed beds produce oxygen, and bass can generally be caught in them all day long. It’s important to know, however, that water around vegetation typically holds progressively more oxygen during the day, especially on bright sunny days. Then it steadily loses oxygen at night. This is due to photosynthesis, the process by which green plants, in the presence of sunlight, convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen.
Bass usually move outside the edges of weed beds late at night and remain outside until photosynthesis reoxygenates the water around the weeds about an hour or two after sunrise. On extremely cloudy days, it may take longer.
So what does that mean to me? Everything – if you are trusting your livewell to keep your catch healthy until weigh-in. You need an Oxygenator.
The OXYGENATOR by O2 Marine Technologies will keep fish alive because it produces the necessary component for an optimum living environment: Oxygen. Unlike aeration systems that pump ambient air (at 20.9% oxygen) through a diffuser into the water, THE OXYGENATOR uses a patented process to create 100% pure oxygen from the water itself. The OXYGENATOR Pro Livewell Flush Mount will retrofit any boat with a livewell from 15 to 50 gallons and operates off the existing boat battery.
It is easy to install and works off your boat’s existing 12 volt battery. Especially down south when the temperatures begin to be a threat around July and August, this becomes an even bigger issue. So, now is the time to look into an OXYGENATOR and guarantee a healthy weigh-in. Go to www.KeepFishAlive.com for more information on this and the U2 livewell additive, too.
Tight Lines
John Gallaspy