Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Best method to transport seven 9-12" pike 6 hours

Howdy

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I am picking up 7 9-12" NP from Keystone next week, which is by my house, and transporting them to my father-in-law's 5 acre pond. The drive will be about 6 hours. I was wondering what the best method would be for transporting them?

-Will the bags have enough o2 to sustain them for the journey?
-Should I rig up a couple coolers with an aquarium aerator and some frozen bottles of water to keep the water cool?

I am going to ask for Keystone's recommendation, as well, but thought I would get some thoughts from the fine folks on the pond boss forum.

Thanks
jg

if they offer bags with pure o2 in them and they fit it should work.
I often use coolers or storage tubes with a bubbler going to transport fish and have had good success. keep the water from getting hot would not hurt. If they start out with good clean water you prob don't need to worry about a water change. But you could

FWIW I've bought fish several times from Keystone with good success (never lost a fish so far). The fish I've picked up come double bagged with O2. I only haul them an hour but I put the bags in large coolers. I would call Keystone and ask to talk to Robert Burke, one of their biologists, and tell him what you're doing. As you're only getting 7 fish, I would ask they be bagged individually with ammonia neutralizer. They may ask a couple extra bucks for extra bags.

They may even have breather bags available for longer hauls. I would at least ask if they have them. Then running out of O2 is not an issue. I'm not a pro. Hopefully, one of the guys that long haul fish all the time will chime in.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the responses, guys. I appreciate it. I am going to talk to Keystone tomorrow about the pickup so I'll see what they can do.

thanks

For a drive that long, I would only put a maximum of 2 fish per bag. But, I like Bills idea of 1 per bag even better if you can haul that many bags without them rolling around.

I would have a large cooler along for the ride, and a battery powered aerator too. Check on the fish every 1/2 hr or so and if you see signs of stress, dump them into the cooler and run the bubbler. I'd be more concerned the last half of the trip vs. the first half.

One per bag is a good plan. When at Keystone get some of their water in your cooler in case you need to transfer from bag to cooler.

Plan for worst case scenario. You never know - traffic, construction, accident. Take with you the equipment necessary to remove the bagged fish into totes/coolers with adequate oxygen and stress reducer. I like quality coolers over totes to better maintain temperature and a sealed lid (or better seal). Have enough bubblers.

Also are you transporting them inside your vehicle? If you are, gorilla tape the coolers with the bagged fish shut (plan for the worst scenario - rollover) and use a quality tarp to place the coolers on. For any splish splash fishy water. Else you ride with fishy smell in your car for quite some time.

Been there done that! And boy does it smell! Ask my wife!

I transfer fish about 2 hours when I have to do it and I use a 2 things.

1. If its a large amount of fish I have a 150 tub I bought from tractor supply and made a lid I put on top of it and strap the lid down with ratchet straps.

2. Or I use about a 50 quote cooler both have the ability to have a air tube put in them.

I have in my truck a invertor I use to plug in my air pump and route the tube out my back window into the cooler or tub. That way I don't have to worry about a battery.

Just talking out loud at this point so you can have some other ideas for future travels....

P.S. I have also you OTABS look them up they are capsules that produce D.O. when you put them in your cooler there pretty neat...

RC

jg387306 If you can get some pictures of our northern pike that you get from Keystone and keep us advised as to how they perform in the pond. Try and note if you see fewer small bass as the NP grow beyond the 26" size.

Bill up here there was an old gravel pit we called Celery pit. The pit was right full of northern pike. Every cast in the spring with anything white would catch one. Any where from 2# to the size of a magic marker.

The farm changed hands and the owner put in large mouth bass into the pond. The pond now have very little trace of pike any more. Weather is the aggressive nature of the bass taking the bait before the pike I don't know but we have not caught pike after Large mouth were added five years now.

The bass are an easy five 4-5 pounds now and for around here that is very big for bass.

Cheers Don.

Guys, thanks for all the responses! I'll keep you posted on the transport.

Right now, it is your typical lmb stunted pond with the majority of lmb at 10" and their relative weight around 65% of what it should be. I don't get down there enough to cull the bass and my father-in-law isn't one for cleaning fish (or at least not enough to manage the population). I'll be keeping measurements of the bass, as I have been for the past couple years, and fish out the pike as necessary.

I will definitely upload pictures to let you all know how it goes. I'm excited for the experiment. Hoping to get all males so they don't grow into monsters (or as big of monsters as the females do) so quickly and don't reproduce. We will see what mother natures has to say about all of this.

jg

Talk to Keystone in the Fall about Tiger Muskies.

Hoo ho now thats a gator fish. Up at our camp I will not put dangle my feet in the water off the dock. My whole body is in or out.

I have seen night line with cables and a 16" walleye on the line tied to a bleach bottle. We followed that bottle all morning until it made its way to the big water and the bottle went down to never be seen again. I am not built to swim as well as them but I have tried to take a bleach bottle to the bottom of a pool.

Pike at 1.4 per acre in 3-4 years should provide noticeable results in the bass population. The results will be interesting. Keep us advised about your project. What comprises the pond's panfish and forage fish?

The pond is made up of lmb, bg, a few holdover bcp stocked by the previous owner, and some big, lazy grass carp. There's a good crayfish population, and it is teeming with other invertebrates.

I had some hoop nets and minnow traps out this weekend and caught anything from last year's yoy bg to 10" bg. Seems to be a very healthy bg population from my data.

Was thinking of getting some golden shiners at Keystone if they had any for another forage species. I've got two different fenced off areas where I am trying to establish some duck potato and various other aquatic/wetland plants so I could throw some of the gsh in there so they don't get eaten right away. Good idea?

thanks

Try putting the GSH in the enclosure. But since they grow slow IMO they will be vulnerable as soon as they escape the enclosure.

Well, long story short, the pike made it. I had to go into work on the day of my scheduled pickup so my much better half and her friend made the trek down 57 and it was a success. Rather simple (easy for me to say since I didn't do the driving). Each pike were in their own bag in a big cooler with some ice packs. All released healthy after getting acclimated to the pond water.

They got to the pond at dark so pictures didn't happen (and I wasn't going to push for them since she was doing me a huge favor). She did some measuring and there was 2 9.5", 3 right around 10.5" range, and the last two just peeked over the 11" mark. Their bodies looked pretty full for what I imagine are 1-2 y/o fish.

Keystone apparently doesn't sex fish so that was a bummer. There aren't any hospitable conditions at the pond for spawning, but I will have to be on the lookout just in case come iceout.

Now comes the fun part. Data tracking. I'll start a new thread with my current data and update it over the years to see if pike are a viable alternative to correcting a lmb stunted pond.

Thanks for all the suggestions and help!

JG,

Great news! I'll be looking forward to your future reports!

Bill D.