How long can you hold a bass out of the water while you weigh, measure, admire and take pictures before the fish is dmaged from lack of oxygen?

how long can you hold your breath underwater... probably about the same timeframe...

This is no where near the right answer. I'm pretty sure I can't unhook a fish, put a cull ball in him, weigh him and get him in the live well in the same amount of time that I can hold my breath under water (30-45 seconds).

Here is an article that is short to read and easy to understand.

http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indian...guidelines.html

I personally know I've had fish out of the water for 3 minutes plus for different reasons and they were alive several hours later at weigh in. Not only were they alive, but they were just as active as the other fish in the live well.

and THIS is the number one mistake I see people forget to do, that results in lost fish...

"Run the recirculating pumps continuously if you have more � than 5 pounds of bass in the livewell."

When I have a fish out of water, there is always a little clock running in the back of my mind. After around 2 minutes I try to hold them back in the water for around 30 seconds. And repeat if necessary.

If it is a keeper then it goes in the box in about 15-20 seconds or however long it takes to get the hook out and a cull ring in. I'll worry about weighing it once I have 5 in the box. You do it long enough you can have a good idea what your weight is. Only lake I fish tournaments on where it takes longer is Fork due to the slot limit. There are no brainers and then there are those that are close to either 16 or 24 and have to be measured.

I

Long enought to take a picture while holding the bass as far away from me and as close to camera as possible.

Probably nothing that you will need to worry about.

I go with the one minute rule. I am sure they would be fine for two but they will be stressed enough.

A lot of it depends on the temps, how stressed the bass is, etc. If you are putting it in the livewell or in the water be sure to make sure you manually move them back and forth in the water to get the oxygen flowing again. Once they show a good amount of reaction to this movement they are probably good to go!

As fast as you can. If you are going to take pics, put them in livewell while you are getting ready.

If it's a keeper it goes in the cooler for me. They're too good to eat to throw back.

why would you throw them back anyway? Just keep them all and eat them