By North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission
Largemouth bass anglers who practice catch-and-release fishing can follow a few simple steps to ensure the fish they catch today will survive to bite another lure tomorrow.
Summer and early fall heat brings with it higher temperatures and lower dissolved oxygen levels in reservoirs and rivers, conditions that are tough on largemouth bass, which can become more stressed when caught. To minimize stress on fish, an angler who plans to catch and release the fish should land the fish quickly and handle it as little as possible.
Anglers should try not to remove the fish from the water when removing hooks and handle the fish as little as possible to help reduce the loss of slime coat, which is a fish’s main protection against infection and disease.
Other tips to keep bass alive:
- Wet your hands before touching a fish
- Return fish quickly to the water if you do not plan to keep it in a livewell
- Use a knotless nylon or rubber-coated net instead of a knotted nylon net
Anglers participating in tournaments can minimize fish mortality by maintaining healthy oxygen and water quality in their livewells.
A few ways to do this are:
- Know the capacity of the livewell and not exceeding a ratio of more than 1 pound of bass per gallon of water
- Run a recirculating pump continuously if more than 5 pounds of bass are in the livewell
- Use aerators or an oxygen-injection systems to keep the water’s oxygen level above 5 parts per million
- Keep livewell water about 5 degrees below the reservoir or river temperature by adding block ice
Tournament participants should fill their weigh-in bags with livewell water, not reservoir or river water, before putting in their catch. They should put only five fish in a bag, fewer if the fish exceed 4 pounds each. Finally, they should limit the amount of time fish are held in bags to less than 2 minutes.
Fishing tournament organizers can do their part by adopting best handling practices at all events. These include staggering weigh-in times to reduce the time fish are held in weigh-in bags, arranging for release boats to return bass quickly to the water and equipping recovery stations with oxygen and recirculating water. Organizers also can provide holding tanks during the weigh-in with water 5 degrees below the reservoir or river temperature and with oxygen levels above 5 ppm. They also can reduce the number of competitive fishing hours.
Article provided by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. For more information, see www.ncwildlife.org/fishing, where there is a guidebook for keeping bass alive.
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