Dead Croakers-dead shrimp-fishing trip finished
 

There's is a problem, a bad problem keeping croakers and shrimp alive. We have you bought many croakers and spent a lot of time catching live bait and everything dies or the quality turns to crab bait before noon. We have wasted $100's of dollars and countless hours of time catching live bait in the last month and ended up with crab bait and this problem is getting worse and more expensive by the trip.

Are you having problems keeping croakers and shrimp alive? We have tried all the usual recommendations, ice, bigger water pumps, croaker saver chemicals, prayer and the results are the same dismal mess-dead bait.

My fishing buddy says hurry and hook the liveliest croakers first before they die. He's right but surely there is a better less expensive way to keep croaker and shrimp alive a few hours.

The bait house guy says the same thing plus, "ya'll come back when ya'll need more croakers."

well I know you need rounded corners in bait holders so they don't get stressed out feeling trapped in corners and if you put too many in, they die from overcrowding, so if your good on those issues I would say you don't have enough oxygen in the water for them and you need add some more air pumps and bubblers to it. if your bait containers have corners then put a bubbler in each corner so the bubbles act as to make a rounded corners so the fish don't stack up there.

shrimp will actually fight and kill each other with their horns if they are bumping into each other and as things die they spoil the water so try a constant water flow system that continuously brings in fresh water and overflows out the old water.

most bait dying issues are from overcrowding causing low oxygen or the shrimp horning other bait if they are mixed

your problem might just simply be you are trying to have too much bait for the size of your container

I agree with the above. Overcrowding and lack of O2 is the key here. I have two 8 gal live wells on my boat and will only put about 30 shrimp in each well, or 15 to 20 fish. Anything more than that and I have noticed that they start to die off or get lethargic.

Good luck

for the shrimp... make sure you have a clean... uncontaminated container... (preferably insulated) fill it 1/2 way with water and then have a bubbler going. float a frozen water bottle in there... and then the key is to put a crawfish sack or burlap sack in the bottom before you put the shrimp in...

the shrimp then have something to hold on to.. they dont swim constantly and are therefore stay much more rested....

1/2 way through the day... change out 1/2 the water and add another bottle of ice (make sure the ice is closed off.... you dont want the ice melting and lowering the salinity)

for croakers... per everyone above.. dont overcrowd em... keep the bubbler going... keep the water changed out regular.. and some ice in a bottle is not a bad idea.

Oxygen bottle connected to your live well and it's all you need. You can buy the set up and have it filled in your area when
Ready to he filled. My bottle
Last me 10-12 trips before having to fill back up. I
Have no problems with losing croakers or shrimp


Sent from the baddest GYM in La

What he said. I never could keep shrimp alive until I learned they need to rest. I use my cricket cage and put in my live well and keep fresh water circulating. Stay alive all day.

I've also heard that putting on sunscreen with your hands and then reaching in the live well without properly cleaning the sunscreen off, soap and water, will kill live bait. Not sure if it's 100% true but we always make sure to wash our hands after applying.

NEVER !!! put your hands in the live well. Use a bait net .

definitely true

No doubt good advice, but we've done ok keeping shrimp and fish alive in a live well by avoiding suntan lotion and insect repellent in the first place.

Last year, we did really well keeping bait fish alive by stepping up to a 60 quart cooler, using a bubbler, and changing out the water (with a bucket) every hour or so. Only kept about 12 bait fish in the cooler adapted to serve as a live well and they lasted all afternoon, and also lived a long time on the hook considering it was July.

I had issues with my live well after I bought the new boat a couple of years ago.

1) The over flow line did not work well. I had to adjust the water inlet flow to a fairly small amount or the live will would overflow. After looking at the installation of this line and taking a few measurements, I found that the hose went up about 1.5 inches after it came away from the live well. I lowered the hose support clamps and this really helped to allow more water impute and not over flow the water.

2) The drain line took a very long time to drain water out when I washed out the live well after a fishing trip. I would get in the boat and squirt a little water and then use a sponge to push the dirt and water to the drain hole. Doing this several times would finally get the live well bottom clean.

When I finally got fed up with this design, I started investigating what was the problem. I put 5 gallons of water in the live well and it took 9 minutes to drain out. I squirted water down the drain hole to see if maybe something was blocking. I measure the live well drain hole and the hole coming out the back. Both were 3/8" diameter 90 deg. ell's and connected to a 3/4" diameter hose.

When I disconnected the hose from the transom fitting, it drained the 5 gal. of water in 5 min. Better, but not great. The fitting on the bottom of the live well......it is a 90 degree type fitting and no room to put a larger fitting. I considered installing a second drain line down near the bottom of the live well so I could get more water circulation.

I took the boat back to the dealer and they agreed to look into my problem. After several phone calls to the manufacture and a couple weeks considering various options they changed out the transom fitting [no cost to me] to a larger size straight fitting. This drained the 5 gallons of water in about 6 minutes.

The pictures are what I use to get fairly good water circulation in my live well. The ends of both PVC pipe have a small stainless steel wire blocking the end so that small bait will not get into the lines and plug them up.

Yesterday, I kept about 150 shad for 5+ hours and only had ~ 20% died. During this time I changed spots [drove with no water circulating] and drove 10+ minutes several times.

Buy an O2 system, problem solved.

Get you a frabill shrimp shack from Academy, or make one yourself for cheaper. They work great. take little 7oz water bottles of frozen water and put in there to keep the water from getting too hot. Be sure to take them out when running so they don't bang around and beat the shrimp up. Like the others said, something for the shrimp to hang onto is critical. Also use a small net to get a shrimp out, don't use your hands!!! And too on them 90 plus days about 6-7 hours is all your gonna get out of shrimp even if you do all of this. Good luck

Its BP's fault!