How to Keep Live Bait Alive

You can learn everything there is to know about how to use live fishing bait, get the very best gear and tackle, and pick out the perfect hotspot, but if your live bait are belly-up when you arrive at the fishing grounds it’s all for naught. Keeping bait alive is fairly easy if you have a fishing boat with a good circulating livewell, like the ones found in the Bayliner fleet.

The health of your bait can dramatically impact your day’s catch. Use these simple tips to make sure they stay is lively as possible.

• When introducing bait to the livewell from a different body of water, help them acclimate to the change. If you purchased bait or caught them in a different area and have them in a bucket, and just dump them into a well filled with water of a different temperature and composition, it can send them into shock. Use a cup or bucket to introduce livewell water to the bait a bit at a time and allow them to acclimate.
• Be careful about how much bait you put in a livewell. When you’ll be spending the entire day fishing with live bait it’s tempting to cram as many as possible into the well. Do so, however, and overcrowding can lead to dropping oxygen levels and rising ammonia levels in the water. Since some species are more delicate than others, there’s no “rule” as to how many can be placed in a livewell, but generally speaking, sensitive baits like menhaden (also known as bunker),do best when there are no more than a fish or two per gallon of water. With heartier bait, you can keep up to four or five per gallon.
• Make sure your bait doesn’t overheat. Even with the livewell pumps running, on very hot, sunny days the temperature in a well can become elevated, and that stresses the bait. When it’s really blazing hot out, toss a handful of ice into the livewell every hour or so to help keep the baits cool.
• On very rough days consider slowing down as you cruise. When the water in a livewell sloshes too much, it can beat the fish against the sides.
• If you keep live bait in a pen, feed them every day or two. You’d be amazed how many people don’t take this simple step, then wonder why their fish die off.

Catching fish with live bait is both fun and effective. And if you care for those bait before sliding them onto the hook, that lively action they provide will surely temp those big predators into biting.