Fished a tourney today and when I got to the weigh in, all my fish were dead. Just an hour before they were all alive. Had my recirculating pump set on manuel for continuous aeriation. Found a lot of 2" shad they had spit up in the livewell. Buddy of mine said that he had heard that shad put off some kind of toxic acid as they die, that's why they are hard to keep alive if not a continuous overturn of water they are in. What do you think happened? Water temperature was around 65 degrees.

possible contamination in the live well?

Did one of those shad plug something?

Was it on recirc. the whole day or just the last hour?

It was on recirculate only from the lake to the weigh in, about 35 minutes. I was wondering if one of the shad had possibly covered the suction on the live well and it didn't recirculate for the travel to the weigh in.

I would like to know also. The last couple of times that I have brought fish in to weigh a couple have died. Had recirculation running. About an hour before they seemed to be alright.

Use Please Release Me.

Whenever shad die they begin to decompose very quickly, more so than some other fish. This causes a spike in amonia in the water, which is bad deadly to the fish.

I sometime put a frozen soda with water in well

Clean your livewells with peroxide, and rinse em out real good. I would also use an additive like Catch and Release or Please Release Me. Even if they spit up shad those additives will remove the amonia from the water and keep the fish less stressed. I add a cap full 2-3 times per day, just enough to keep the water green, and run the recirc and your good to go. When water temps climb into the 80-90 range I also add ice, the additives listed above will also take the chlorine out of the ice.

Thanks for the information about the ammonia, that is what I was trying to find out. I have been tourney fishing for over twenty years and this is the second time I have had this happen. There is nothing that I hate worse than to see dead fish at the weigh in where people have not taken care of them. I was so ashamed that I didn't even weigh my fish in. Saw some young man parading around with a dead fish and was proud he had it. Fish were not fit to eat so I brought them home to the wife to put in her flower beds. I normally only use the catch and release when the weather starts heating up more but will now use it always for the reasons you all gave. I appreciate you all interacting with me to solve my problem.

I had this happen with a friend of mine once on Fork. We had about a 15 minute boat ride to weigh in and I personally checked the fish while idling out to the boat lane. They were all lively. When we got to weigh in, I opened the lid and they were all belly up and their fins were just barely kicking. They did not count as dead fish because they were technically still alive, but they were not going to swim off. We were puzzled. A week later, he did some crappie fishing with his son and while they were driving down the lake, his son reached back and opened the livewell and there was no water in it. The valve had messed up on the livewell drain and as long as we were sitting in the water, they had plenty of water in the well. When we got up on plane, it drained the water out. Since then, I don't trust my livewell valve anymore and just use a manual plug.

And the bad thing about this you probably had some large fish. Maybe could have been in the money

was it a trailering tournament? the reason I ask is one time at tawak I trailered with a limit to another ramp and after unloading the boat back into the water to fish some more my fish went from great to near dead and 1 died. I assumed it was as I backed down the ramp recirc picked up some gas or oil from my own boat venting or another. I am really careful about that now.

I raised Cichlids for a number of years and the comment on ammonia is spot on. When you have a lot of fish in a small amount of water, excretions and waste from the fish can cause the ammonia to spike very quickly. Ammonia in the water will kill the fish faster than just about any other factor.

Go to the local pet store and pick up a product called "AmQuel". A capful will treat 10 gallons and the effect is immediate. It will control the ammonia in your livewell and should go a long way to helping prolong the life of your shad. Even without having your pump on ciculate, the amquel should keep them from dying.