Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Angling Mortality

Here's the way it works...a fish's slime coat is its first line of defense against disease. When a fish is handled, the slime coat is compromised, unless the handler's hands are wet. If you feel slime on your hands after handling a fish, that fish's slime is compromised. A fish put into a live well or otherwise kept out of its native habitat will begin to slough its slime as a defense mechanism to ward off the "foreign objects" such as hands and live well walls, etc. Given enough time, the fish will regenerate its slime. Bacteria attacks while the fish is in its most weakened state.
Salt dehydrates the slime cells, keeping the fish from sloughing it into the water as it generates new slime. The salt removes water from the cells forming the slime, making it more "sticky" and less like to come off the fish. Salt also fights bacteria.
It's one of the few approved "chemicals" for use to prevent or treat diseases in fish.
I use three pounds of salt in 100 gallons of water. It's a cardinal rule for handling warmwater freshwater fish.
For those of you who have handled shad, especially as bait, remember what happens when you catch them in a cast net and put them into your bait well. The water foams up, the fish turn color and then they die. That's because shad are delicate and that slimy, gooey slime coat is easily taken off. It's just that with shad, you see the consequences quickly. With other fish as bluegill or bass or redear sunfish, etc., they don't show the results as fast. A mishandled fish as bass may not die for several days, after the slime coat was compromised. The cause of death may be a bacteria, but the bacteria is the second factor in line. As a matter of fact, the stressor is losing the slime, followed by bacterial infection and finalized with a fungal growth that finishes the fish.
An antibiotic in the water serves to eliminate external bacteria in the water, to put off its attack on a weakened fish.
So, salt in fresh water to handle fish is a good idea. It's not necessary in a pond environment, simply because the fish lives there and isn't confined.