Fizzing ,Prerelease salt tank

[gnewski5]

Hi Dan, I,m new to your site. Been lurking for a little while. I direct a small club out of Southeastern Mi. (Fin-Addicts, we have 19 boats on the books this year).

I get on lscn about daily. There is a thread over there about dead fish after tournaments. Let me start by saying I didn't come over here to start trouble, but to ask you a few questions. I thought those links in that thread very informative. (fizzing and fish handling from the boat to back in the water layout).

1st question: "Fizzing", is that a good information sheet on how to fizz deep caught fish? Location and how to? or is fizzing something I should be shown, so I could then show the guys in the club. I would like to print that info sheet and have it laminated and buy a bunch of needles and distribute them to the club members.

2nd question: "A salt prerelease tank" Does it really help? Right now I fill some 25 gal. bins with lake water. Thats it. If fish look like they are having a hard time, we get them back in the lake and work on them in there. Would having one more tank with the proper salt solution help?

As a club we don't have a major dead fish problem. But I would still want to help the fish out as much as possable. I do push using please release me, ice , and using the recirc. pumps at our club meetings.

Thanks Greg Wisniewski

[djkimmel]

Greg, thanks so much for signing up. I’ve seen you around for quite a while on the Internet and have visited your club’s website a handful of times over the past couple years since you guys are pretty active.

I trust you aren’t out to cause trouble. That thread has been disturbing to me, that’s for sure.

We like good questions over here. Keeps thing interesting and so far these forums have been pretty positive and mature, thank goodness.

I haven’t gone to all the links yet. I’ve seen some of this information over the years and have discussed some of it with various fisheries biologists along with reading some studies related to catch-and-release methods and tools.

I’ve never fizzed a bass. Fish biologists in general have the feeling most anglers can’t handle technical stuff good enough to safely do things like tag and fizz - kind of like many technical vocation practitioners. Some are better at ‘letting go’ and/or believing some anglers are knowledgeable and dedicated enough to do these kinds of things, but not many. I’ve been discouraged enough times and had so few cases of having bass I was having that kind of problem with, I’ve never learned to fizz.

Preferably, I’d want to learn how to do it right from someone I knew was an expert, like a fisheries biologist. There’s not a plethora of fish biologists standing around wanting to show us though, so I guess I would learn it from someone I felt was mature and trustworthy who had done it many times without apparently killing bass.

It is risky for the bass – possible infection and/or puncturing vital organs – the warnings I’ve heard most often from fish biologists. The fizzing pdf seems well written and appears to be accurate from what I’ve previously read and been told by fisheries people. I’m a little leery that there is no respectable source quoted. I would like to confirm the location of the needle poke as described in the article. I’ve been told that bass don’t necessarily all have the swim bladder so easily located, but I would think it’s possible to get most of them once you get good at it.

Another real fear of the fish biologists is that people are fizzing every bass that looks shaky whether it was caught real deep or not. Every 33 feet approximately, pressure goes up 100 percent from sea level pressure. I’ve heard people say bass need fizzing at 15 feet, or 20 feet or 25 feet or 27, etc. I notice the paper recommends 35 feet, which is about right. The only fish I’ve ever had get real sick and/or die on me (perch, lake trout, a few bass) have been caught below 40 feet other than one bass in Cass Lake that was out in 20+ but I think came up from deeper water to hit a jig dropping into the depths.

The salt prerelease tank I feel much better about even though I haven’t seen anyone up north here use it. It is recommended and a part of the release ‘kit’ provided to tournaments by the Oklahoma fisheries people. Gene Gilliland, well known and very well respected, a person who has put a great deal of effort into improving tournament release success is behind this. I’ve heard him speak about the use of the salt bass and why at national meetings in the past. He talks about it because anglers are skeptical and slow to change, plus when you put the bass in the salt bath, they tense up and look like they are having a stroke, but he swears it really does help the bass recover faster.

The salt bath is just a tub the bass are dipped into right after they come out of the weigh bucket, before they go back into a fresh water tank. I haven’t read about the salt bath in a while so I’m rusty. I could never get the federation or anyone else up here to adopt it. Gene said it wasn’t as big a deal up here other than when we were having tournaments with surface water in the mid-80’s and above. Guess I need to go back and go over the Oklahoma ‘kit’ and the BASS release guide again.

I would recommend that you read up on the salt bath a little and consider using that with your group. Maybe other people will see you guys do it and think about trying it, kind of like that real interesting in-water weigh in the Canadian Open is using now – real interesting.

I would say the fizzing is questionable unless you have guys who know they caught bass deeper than 33 feet that appear to have problems. I’ve been hearing that the guys at Avid in your neck of the state do a lot of fizzing. That might be a place you could witness it done and see if it matches the poster. I put a post on lsc.net asking the source of the document. I may be able to find some other information from good sources over the weekend to post. I’ve posted some of it in the past on lsc.net too. I may still be able to find it in the forum history.

Thanks again for the great questions and I hope you can participate here more. Share what you find out too please.

[Dan]

We had a guy two years ago at the State Championship fizzing bass. He claimed it was best done as they were first caught. Saw that a number of bass that weren't able to sink but otherwise seemed active drop like a rock after fizzing. The big question is what happens down the road with these fish.

[djkimmel]

That's what I've been told about fizzing - it needs to be done when the bass is caught so it doesn't add additional stress trying to right itself in the livewell all day.

By the time it gets to the weigh in hours later maybe, it is frazzled to say the least. Since the air bladder helps regulate the bass' equilibrium and suspension in the water, I would think if you let too much air out, a real stressed bass might have trouble swimming and staying off the bottom to recover well.

That's why I want more information from an expert myself.

I do know that more than once I have had MDNR fish biologists tell me they think we are just hiding our dead bass by fizzing them to a point that the weak ones sink to the bottom and die out of sight.

I think there may be a little truth to that if weak bass are put in more stress by losing all their equilibrium. Maybe it helps some bass recover - the problem is I just don't know since I don't watch all the bass to see which ones swim away and which ones don't. No one has really done this in Michigan to my knowledge. If the bass can swim away and does not get an infection, they will probably make it, especially the ones that move out the farthest and find food fairly quick.

Therefore, I'm hesitant to be a fan of fizzing bass at the weigh in. It's just the way I am, I need information to feel comfortable with something. I know I don't have a lot of answer's right now.

[gnewski5]

I feel the same way you do. Not enough "real" information. It just seamed alittle radical to put the fish in heavy salt or to be puncturing holes in their sides. Thats why I figured i'd ask before just going for it.

Like I said earlier, we don't have a big kill problem. But if there was something else to increase there odd's, i'd like to do it.

I'm going to just stick with what we are doing. We had three fish 4 of us worked on for half an hour up on Hamlin lake back in July. 2 of them made it, 1 didn't. Any fish that doesn't make it goes in a cooler and me or my partner take them home and filet them. I don't like to leave any fish floating or in the water at all. I know 100% of our fish don't always make it but, there is no reason to leave dead fish at a ramp. I would rather take the time to filet them than just waste them.

Thanks Dan
Newski

[djkimmel]

Thank you for setting great examples. That's how things get improved!

[Revtro]

I agree with Dan about fizzing. For years, i've read different articles on it and have seen differing diagrams on how to do it properly. I just don't feel confident that I would always hit the air bladder and not damage vital organs. So I don't fizz at all.

I have a theory about it for what it's worth. I have caught fish from 20-30 feet deep and released them right away and they seemed to go under water just fine and swim away. But when I keep them in the livewell for other tourneys, they float on their side. I wonder if this has anything to do with water temp and airation? or the amount of time spent up top? e.g. the longer they're up top, the more air they get in their air bladder. I have yet to see a deep fish floating on it's side when released within a minute or two of being caught. This has just been my experience.

So a good idea for smaller clubs would be to do "immediate release" tournaments like we do. If you're not fishing for big money, you will likely find most guys will be very honest about it. Besides, the partner can always keep the other guy honest and with a second scale, you can eliminate most innacuracies in the weighing process. Lots of guys say that one scale doesn't weigh the same as the next. Actually, we've found quite the opposite. Most of the time my scales seem to be dead on. Unless someone has a really bad scale, most of the time they'll be pretty close. Heck, strap a 3 or 5lb weight on and check them and adjust if necessary. But this is a great way to keep the bass alive and less stressed. Works great for our club.

This is only what WE do. I'm not suggesting that your club needs to do this. If you don't have a fish kill problem, then why change? This is just my 2 cents on the subject. Now I'm broke.