Caught 'em on Lavon; question about the live well

Caught 15 keepers in 10-12 FOW on standing timber. Most on 1/16 oz chartreuse/white feather jig. Fish were almost all very near the bottom. One was really nice: 1.95 lbs.
Got home late, didn't take pix. When I was cleaning them, I came across one (13-incher) that really smelled like it had gone bad. I cleaned it anyway, thinking maybe it was my imagination. The meat didn't look as white as the rest, either.

When I brought the filets in to rinse them, I got to those two filets and there was no doubt. That fish was bad. I think it may have been the first one I caught, which would mean it was in the live well for about six hours. The live well seems to be working fine.

Will crappie die and go bad like that?

I have always tried to put mine on ICE in a cooler ASAP instead of my livewell.

It's hot outside and hard to keep fish in a live well

Yep during the summer they go straight from the lake to some ice.

This is the best way until late September or at least until the heat index begins to drop some. Your other option is to fill the live well, plug it and run the re-circulatory and add Bait Saver to the water as well and frozen jugs of water........a cooler of ice is WAY easier!

If the gills aren't red I don't clean them. White gills = bad meat.

Plus the Ice makes the flesh firmer making them easier to filet

Live well water is too hot right now at 90 degrees & oxygen content is very low.


Straight into the ice chest for the next couple of months.

Saturday I took three 2 liter bottles that I keep in the freezer with water froze. I filled my live well half full when I got to the lake. Kept my aerator running most of the time. When I got home the 15 fish in there were alive and well. The ice had melted in the bottles but the water was still cool after about 5 hrs fishing. If you fill it full of this hot 90 deg water and put the fish in they will die. Ice chest is the way to go though.

Sucks when you plan on catching a bunch and only catch four or five. Can't turn them loose after putting them in a cooler full of ice for a few hours.

Ice here too.... I can't seem to keep catfish alive in a livewell at these temps, much less crappie.

If you freeze water bottles and keep the water in the well cool, the fish will live all day with no problem. If you put them in hot lake water they wont make it very long.

Stay Alive powder and Frozen jugs of water and a properly maintained live-well. I have a divided live-well so the jugs do not slam into the fish when traveling.

Keep the water treated,cool and aerated and they will make it to weight-in.

If you are not going to weight-in then simply toss the fish in an ice chest with ice or live-well with ice and that will keep them from spoiling.

A guide friend of mine has a pool floating temp gauge in his live well. under $10 at Walmart.
he trys to keep the live well water about 5-7 degrees lower than lake water,..says it works great.