live well

[muttmechanic]

does anyone have any suggestions for a portable livewell for a flat boat? they have the little buckets at the various tackle/ outdoors stores with the airaters either built in or attached somehow to a bucket or trashcan. I want to be able to attach it to my deep cycle I use for my trollin motor so I don't have to worry about keeping batteries on board. I'm tied between the 5 gallon bucket and a trash can that would be more sturdy. Any suggestions?

[Mediumheavyaction6'6]

I have always thought a battery operated water pump hung over the side of the boat attached to an ice chest would be doable. I was thinking if you put an inlet towards the bottom of the ice chest and then an outlet at the top you would have constant water flow through the thing allowing the fish to stay alive longer. In my experience an aerator would not keep game fish alive.

[muttmechanic]

what about bait fish? is there any advantage to letting game fish stay alive? most people my way that I know of just throw them in ice

[cabwiz2]

they sell an areator that has a filter on the bottom and it has a pipe that sprays the water from the top and suction cup feet. you can buy at walmart or academy. has aligator clips to hook to a battery. can put in ice chest or bucket.

[longsidelandry]

You talking about something like this??

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/st..._SearchResults

[jpeff31787]

When we didn't have a live well we'd have a big 74qt icechest (i think) and we'd use an old bilge pump to pump the water in from the lake. We'd just use the trolling motor battery to power the pump. Every now and then we'd throw the pump in the icechest to stir up the water and make some more oxygen or we'd just throw some of the water out and put some new water if it was getting warm.

[speck-chaser]

Ive used the aerator tha Cawbiz is talking about. works great. Your standpipe has to be above water level to work right. The water has to catch air to give off oxygen.

[wtretrievers]

If you're looking to keep bait such as Shrimp alive this is the ticket! Drill the right size hole through the lid for the aerator, keep a couple frozen water bottles in it & they'll stay alive! You need to use the coolers with pull type lid, not screw on. This works 10x better than bait/live well in my bay boat.

[BIGJ]

Originally Posted by wtretrievers

If you're looking to keep bait such as Shrimp alive this is the ticket! Drill the right size hole through the lid for the aerator, keep a couple frozen water bottles in it & they'll stay alive! You need to use the coolers with pull type lid, not screw on. This works 10x better than bait/live well in my bay boat.

This setup should work nice!!!

[wtretrievers]

It does. You can carry the cooler out of the boat into a bait shop, use the handles & a bungee cord to secure it to a lean post or whatever, plus it's insulated & round which helps the bait.

The aerator is about $40 at academy, & you can steal some ones water cooler!

[muttmechanic]

yea. that cooler idea is awesome cause it will keep everything insulated. and i think itll definitely be cheaper than tracking down a trashcan. thanks