Looking for opinions on best way to hold and transport bass alive without having a boat with a built in livewell. A little background info, our family has property south of Winnie, Texas that has several reservoirs ranging from 240-640 acres. Historically we had bass, crappie, bluegill in them. Hurricane Ike hit and we had a 16 foot storm surge that filled the reservoirs with saltwater and along with the saltwater came redfish and even some trout and flounder. We could catch 75 redfish in an evening standing from the small dock. The Corps of Engineers were made aware of this somehow and informed us that we must drain it or it would be deemed a saltwater wetlands and we would basically lose the right to alter the land in anyway.
So about 8 years ago we had drained it and we waited a couple years until the salinity levels got down to a manageable level and we filled it back up and stocked it with bass, crappie and bluegill. The biologist said that we need to keep 1500-2000 bass out of it a year to keep it at good numbers, which we have done a poor job of. I have been going pretty often this Spring/Summer and the numbers are still through the roof, but we aren't catching anything of much size, upper end bass are 4-5 pounds. Typically most afternoons when I go, we'll catch 40-50 bass all on topwaters in just a couple hours. I keep about a dozen every other time or so, but I can only eat so much bass.
What I am wanting to do is get something that I can leave in the bed of the truck while we are fishing that is capable of holding 20-40 fish at a time for several hours, that I can then drive to friends/families property that have ponds that I can release the fish into rather than just keeping and cleaning all those fish. What would ya'll suggest to keep these fish in that they would stay alive for 3-4 hours while I fish and then transport them to a new location within 30-40 miles from there?
I've attached some pics of the last time we went out there about a week and a half ago.
So about 8 years ago we had drained it and we waited a couple years until the salinity levels got down to a manageable level and we filled it back up and stocked it with bass, crappie and bluegill. The biologist said that we need to keep 1500-2000 bass out of it a year to keep it at good numbers, which we have done a poor job of. I have been going pretty often this Spring/Summer and the numbers are still through the roof, but we aren't catching anything of much size, upper end bass are 4-5 pounds. Typically most afternoons when I go, we'll catch 40-50 bass all on topwaters in just a couple hours. I keep about a dozen every other time or so, but I can only eat so much bass.
What I am wanting to do is get something that I can leave in the bed of the truck while we are fishing that is capable of holding 20-40 fish at a time for several hours, that I can then drive to friends/families property that have ponds that I can release the fish into rather than just keeping and cleaning all those fish. What would ya'll suggest to keep these fish in that they would stay alive for 3-4 hours while I fish and then transport them to a new location within 30-40 miles from there?
I've attached some pics of the last time we went out there about a week and a half ago.
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