Major bass die-off following Potomac Tournament

[Bryan]

From Ken Penrod's Website:


Potomac River, tournament related bass kill: one hundred and fifty-eight boats (316 anglers), launching boats from Smallwood State Park on June 25 and 26 and left behind a conservatively estimated 1000 largemouth bass, floating in the river, a disgraceful and unforgivable result. Maryland Department of Natural Resources initially estimated the kill to be 100. I began to contact DNR on Tuesday, June 30 after receiving many telephone calls from concerned anglers. I asked for an immediate investigation and on Wednesday, July 1, a team of DNR employees searched the creek and by their count, some 600 dead bass were still in Mattawoman Creek. That’s four days (about seven tidal flushes) after the last day of the tournament. There is no way to estimate accurately how many bass died due to this event—but I firmly believe that “600” is just the tip of the iceberg. I have reliable reports from as far downriver as Arkindale Flats of huge amounts of dead bass days after the event.

Anyone got any ideas as to what may have caused this, or seen it for themselves?

[Captmikestarrett]

Well the grass fills in at the docks and creates a very warm water area. Fish released are put in shock and die. Plus the septic tank may be leaking at the dock as well. Large mats of sewage eating algea have been spotted as well. After the water temp reaches 70 I think the release at boat rule should come into play. I saw a technique where the contestants where given a "one of a kind" ruler and had to photo the fish. 5 fish had to be photoed with time date stamp on each photo. Big screen at end of tourney decided total length as the winner. It was a kinda neat to see. First 5 pics meant no culling unless you deleated a pic or two.

Capt Mike

[nofearengineer]

Suddenly us guys who like to eat a bass or two don't seem so bad.

But seriously, that release at boat thing sounds interesting. If you're measuring by length, to some degree, it would take a bit of pressure off of spawning fish as well. No need to go after the big, heavy females when a long skinny male would score just as well.

I've always had mixed feelings about bass fishing during the spawn anyways. Yeah, it's a blast, but man, I'd be mad as he77 if some guy jerked me out of bed with a big hook while I was doing my thang.

[Kevin]

You know, this angers me greatly. I've witnessed tons of dead fish at these tournaments, and I can honestly say a TON of them are dead the moment they are taken out of the anglers livewells. I really don't know how these bass boaters are killing so many bass. Do they not run their aerators?

I've witnessed massive amounts of dead fish at tournaments held at Leesylvania as well. Even the live fish these guys are weighing in are sometimes clinging on to life.

Even more, I've been to the weigh-in's in the heat of summer at Smallwood for both BASS and FLW and have seen little to no dead fish at these events. It is the local tournaments that bring in all the dead fish.

From my observations, the fish kill has little to do with the release... it seems to me these fish are on their way out or dead before they hit the scales.

I've been appalled for sometime about this. I've been to these local tournaments and have seen huge live tanks chock full of dead bass. Most people never see these tanks chock full of dead bass because they are always covered so no one can see.

Quite honestly, there needs to be some real oversight at these local events. Because from what I've witnessed, it's appalling.

[nofearengineer]

Having never been in or even attending a bass tournament, even a local one, I have a few questions.

I assume there is a safety check of the fishermen's boats, life jackets, fire extenguisher, basic seaworthiness, etc. Is there no check of a working livewell with aerator and/or recirculator?

I like those flip clips by one of the site sponsors. A bass I caught in deep water this year was doing the "float on its side on top" thing before eventually righting itself. It would be interesting to see if things like that could be included in the tournament buy-in fees.

[1/4 stick]

Could it be that they are not cleaning their live-well properly? I've never used a live-well myself so I don't know the cleaning procedure. What I keep to eat either go on a stringer or in a bucket. I usually go the bucket route. But in my novice experiance with aquariums, cleaning the tanks with chemicals such as bleach will contaminate the tank for a long while after the cleaning and kill off the fish. So could it be they are opting the easy route and cleaning with bleach, or could the live well cleaners they are using not be as safe for the fish as one might think?

[Kevin]

Tournament officials do not check for functioning livewells. They only look in your livewell to make sure there aren't fish in there before the tournament begins. This is even performed beneath my standards most of the time. I've seen TD's okay boats during livewell checks with full-water wells, and okay boats that were a good 30 feet away from the TD as they idled by. TD's will just wave and give the go ahead, assuming the livewells are empty. There is no "real" check... it's spotty at best.

I've never cleaned a livewell in any of my boats so I can't speak to contamination from cleaning solutions. I guess that could be plausible, but I doubt that many cases would exist in a tournament that accounts for over 1,000 dead floating bass.

If I hadn't seen big fish kills at Leesylvania (which is generally clean/good water in summer), then I'd assume it has to do with the boats coming into Smallwood and the bad water near the marina. But I've seen the Elite Series and FLW Tour events there and witnessed little to no dead fish. All are kicking ferociously coming out of the livewell, as they should be!

[nofearengineer]

By the way...if you ever want to clean a livewell, please don't use bleach. Use coarse salt on scrubber pad. The same for aquariums. Salt will clear out the first time you hit it with a hose, and it is a natural chemical. Plus, a few parts per million that might remain will not hurt the bass. Bleach, on the other hand, has a way of clinging to hoses and seals, and only a couple of parts per million will totally nuke anything you keep in that livewell, even catfish.
Remember, if you're keeping oxygenated water in your livewell, the only bacteria that grow in there should be good healthy species. As long as there's no "rotten eggs" smell or anything coming out of there, you're fine.

[jasonfish320]

Wow, that's incredible! I have witnessed many dead fish at tourneys but never in the hundreds maybe a half dozen at best. I personally have fished in over 50 tourneys over the past 3 years and have only had one fish die in my well.

[bassintom]

Some smaller clubs are now making it mandatory to have aerators and funtioning livewells.As long as you have a circulating pump AND aerator there will be no problem unless it is extremely hot.I've also always insulated my livewell lids with styrofoam insulation.Using catch and release also helps.
I'm upset seeing a few dead fish at tourneys(I have lost fish before doing the improvements to my livewells),I'd go nuts seeing 1,000 dead bass.
It has to stop.Every bass angler should feel obligated to get their livewells in tiptop condition.It only makes sense.
Wouldn't there be penalties for dead fish in a tourney? The club I belonged to had penalties if you brought in a dead fish.And you had to keep the dead fish and eat or dispose of them properly.Throwing a dead fish in the water was not allowed for any reason.

[nofearengineer]

I find it surprising that so many died in the livewells. Those livewells must be in HORRIBLE condition. I have taken fish from 85 degree water home in 95 degree heat and driven them an hour and a half home with no aeration other than the sloshing as I hit bumps in the road. They are still kicking and putting up a fight when I get home.

So these fish are NOT totally delicate and fragile. What kind of a jackass does it take to kill that many fish?

[swimbaitkid]

There is a couple lakes where fish just die in the live well,at Russel in SC, 3out of 5 died in the livewell and they were spots,and it was like a 75 degree day

[Willvdh1]

That is really sad to hear, and dissapointing. I think its these smaller tournements, they just dont inspect the boats like they ought to. secondly the grade of boats (and livewells) probably aren't as nice as what you would see in FLW or BASS. Maybe I'm wrong but at any rate if you have fish dying in your live well then you probably need to get things serviced. I have never heard of 1,000 dead bass though, that is crazy!!

[Captmikestarrett]

I think you all missed how they died.

From the top..

Fish are removed from the livewell healthy and placed in mesh bags.

As you stand in line you move from tank to tank with your fish...

The tanks are filled with tap water at 62 degrees and chems are added to cut the clorine and keep slime coat.

Fish are then dumped right into 75-85 degree water. The shock will stop there heart and in about an hour they will die. They float up in about 2 days.

Capt Mike

[1/4 stick]

Originally Posted by Captmikestarrett

I think you all missed how they died.

From the top..

Fish are removed from the livewell healthy and placed in mesh bags.

As you stand in line you move from tank to tank with your fish...

The tanks are filled with tap water at 62 degrees and chems are added to cut the clorine and keep slime coat.

Fish are then dumped right into 75-85 degree water. The shock will stop there heart and in about an hour they will die. They float up in about 2 days.

Capt Mike

Ahhh... that would explain it. Sorry for my ignorance, I've never done the tournaments. I'm a comando fisherman, hiding in the farm ponds, and country fishing holes seeking that one in a million bass that's big enough to mount, (or at least get a replica). Sadly, thus far the big bass have been smarter than me.

[JB]

we used to clean the weigh in bags from lake to lake so not to pass along disease. I've seen countless weigh ins and even on the ohio river when its a 100 out only a few bass here and there come to the scales dead. I know what mikes talking about, you stand in line with your bag of fish and some guys next to the tanks will put their bag in but then you pull it back out as the line moves on. Plus if the tourney ends at 3 for example all the guys that got fish have to weigh in and get in line at once, You can wait sometimes a long time to get to the scales.
I bet PETA will have a field day on this

[aikenyounggun]

yeah what SBK was talkin about was just plain wierd..... the fish were just freekin out and dieing, never seen it before.....

they would look fine and boom like an hour later they would be dead, happened to everyone in our small club

[WTL]

One more reason for my general dislike of tournaments. If they are done right and for the right reasons they are fine, but they seem to more often magnify all the worst components of the sport.

What really bothers me is the callousness some tourney anglers have in regards to the fish kills. I have mentioned it a few time on here, the one I will never forget is when I arrived to see a weighin at a wildcat and fat %&$* after fat %&%%& released dead bass into wheeler lake and waddled back up the dock, not even looking at all the floaters or looking me in the eye when I walked past.

I would rather stay home than be that big of a pariah. I'll keep a bass every now and then, I'm not a super stringent purist, but the wholesale destruction of the resource really pisses me off.

[nofearengineer]

Yeah...if your bass die, or you think they are certain to die...have the decency to at least eat them. Don't hide behind some politically correct notion of catch and release. Then again, like WTL said...there are some that don't even look at the bass as anything more than accessories to their competitive ego trip.

[Bender]

I can't imagine that many dead bass! Even the tournaments around here where smallies are caught in the Saint Clair River from 30+' down most live, the flip clips do help a lot from what I have been told. On the hot days it may take some work to manage your fish like ice, Please-Release-Me, running aerator constantly, etc. Every tournament I have fished has stiff penalties for a dead fish, like half the weight of the first one, 2 dead and half the weight again + big fish, 3 dead and you are DQ'ed.

If there were that many bass dead it must have been a bigger tournament, not a small club. The Stren maybe? Don't they use a release boat? But if the fish were in bad shape that would just move them out of the public's eye. Plus it is illegal in Michigan to put a dead fish back in the water.

One tournament I fished earlier this year required you to use their bags. I didn't understand at first but then it made sense since there were about 6 bags. That meant no waiting in line and was much easier on the fish I am sure. There are a lot of things that can be done to keep the mortality rate lower.

[3dkicker]

Seeing as I was part of this tournament I'm upset at the fact that so many fish died. I'm sure when FLW/Stren hears about it they will or have already looked at the weigh in process and their release methods. Here's an overview of the process

1) Livewell checks are done first thing in the morning and you turn on the livewell so they can see it operating. They also do a kill switch check.
2) Both days both of my pro's had their livewells running the entire time and I still had one fish die on me but that was due to hook damage. Water temps were between 78 and 82 degrees.
3) When we arrived at weigh in there was a 20 minute delay before being called to weigh fish. Livewells were running.
4) We were given bags when we checked in to use to weigh the fish. We carried the bags with the fish in the water from the livewell up to the holding tanks.
5) The holding tanks had aerators which everyone used to provide oxygen to the fish.
6) The fish were removed from the bag, the bag emptied, and fish put back into the bag and immediately you would go up and have your fish weighed. Some pro's and co's talked for 10-15 seconds but most people walked immediately off stage and had "blue" water poured into the bags. This water, I believe, was super oxygenated and had one of the slime protection chemicals in it.
7) The fish were then walked down to the release boats and put in a holding tank.
8) The boats then released the fish in the channel in Mattawomen. They would run the fish out and come back alternating positions on the dock.

We had a club tournament that Sat and Sun and the Major saw a few dead bass on Sunday only in the creek. But you can expect a small death rate in tournaments. I don't know how many fish were weighed but there were a lot of limits weighed in this tournament. A 5% loss would mean 50 fish out of 1000. I'm estimating if 600 died then that would be a 30% loss if 2000 fish were weighed. If 1000 died then a 50% loss. That's not good and somehow somewhere someone screwed up because this type of loss is not typical with these events.

[Bryan]

Thanks for the insight Smitty, it's good to hear the details from somebody who was there. Kinda makes you wonder if maybe the release boat had something to do with it?

[Captmikestarrett]

I am leaning toward the holding tank temps or the amount chems in the holding tanks.

I have once put too much Keep Alive in my bait well tank and killed 8 doz shinner in a matter 20 minutes.

Done the same to LGMouth in the live well too to much chems.

Capt Mike

[nofearengineer]

Capt. Mike.

As a guy who holds a lot of live bait, do you have any insights as to the shape of livewells having any impact on bass? I've heard that some fish, such as Gizzard Shad, can't be kept unless you have a circular livewell. I've often wondered if this would have any effect on bass. I haven't had any bass die in my livewells yet, but I figure any improvement is a good thing.

I know this had nothing to do with the Potomac die-off, but while we're so focused on live-wells and related issues, I thought I'd bring it up.

[Captmikestarrett]

Rounded edges help LGMouth with O2 water circulation. I have a very square well in my tin boat and it just kills fish except them darn snakeheads.

If the water is moving as in a flow from one side of the well to other then the corners matter less. But as you know most circulation is from a spray bar to add O2 and the pick up is just under the spray bar. Very bad design BTW. There is a super system out there that newer boats have called:



http://www.akwa-lung.com/

This sytem will keep a 100lb catfish alive for days. It is a very good system that can keep a 240 gal cattle tank clean and healthy for weeks with 40 pounds of delicate shinners.

I find it a bit pricey so I built my own with a cattle tank and tupperware.

In answer to your question shinners bunch up in corners and they use up all O2 and die off from crowding. Cattle tanks are round...

Capt Mike