Fizz Your Fish!!

[Stratos278]

Yesterday at the REBC Open at Sonoma a quite a few deep-caught fish were brought to the scales bloated. Unfortunately no one had a needle to pop 'em..hope they all made it. Just a reminder to everyone...this time of year most fish are going to be deep, if you bring them up too fast or keep them up too long, they will probably need to be fizzed. There are two ways to do this, thru the skin near the lateral line or thru the crushers. Search the forum for more info

[TomLeogrande]

IMO - There are better ways... I returned 15 fish to the lake after the event myself and took care of them. I also found a couple floaters that I took care of as well. I should say we as Chris Lapointe also helped me with this. I am not a biologist by any means so please don't take what I say as gospel.

Here is the best way, and easiest in my opinion... it takes a little extra work but, I think it is better for the fish in the long run. Please DFG bioligists if you read these feel free to comment for better or worse!!!

Here's what I did and how I did it. It's super easy and you don't have to be a surgeon to do it. I took the fish out in my boat to 60 feet of water and used the Shelton Fish Descender.... Note: I did start at 30 feet and one fish came back up so I moved to 60 feet. It took me all of 15 minutes and I feel confident those fish have a better chance of survival than me stabbing around their insides hoping to deflate the fish and not give it a heart bypass or kidney puncture. In the event you are fishing somewhere that has a deep water dock then you can do it right off the dock.

I used the Shelton Fish Descender (available from Monster Fishing Tackle)



Note: I highly recommend against continuing to fish after dropping the fish back to depth! But the system seems to work great!

[BILLY]

.....Thank you tom and Chris for being there.
First time I have missed it in years.

[jbass]

Learning how to to fizz your fish is key. We had one that was caught in 20+ feet and she decided to swim upside down. I fizzed her by going inside the mouth between the crushers, she swam off just fine. Thank you Billy for showing me that technique.

[Greg Cornish]

I've never had a deep fish in a live well, I always release them right away and they never float. It this because they aren't stressed or because they still have enough energy to return to the proper depth?

[AC]

That is a good question Greg, I am not sure of the answer but I think it may have something to do with the fact that when you release them quick they are not given time to try to adjust to the new pressure they have been pulled into. When you release them before they inflate they are able to swim back down. We had to fizz 3 of our fish on saturday and they all seemed fine as they leveled out in the livewell. At the end of the day they all swam away. My question is how long will a fish that needs to be fizzed survive in the well upside down? If they are belly up for 8 hours will Toms tool still work? I know I always freak out when I see a belly up fish in the well and fizz them right away, could I get away with waiting till the end of the day?

[Greg Cornish]

Here's a link on fizzing

https://www.calbassin.com/Smf/index.php?topic=4171.0

[JIGS]

100% agree with Tom's method. I believe a few tournament Orgs use fish nets/baskets and return the fish to depths and release them. Fizzing thru crushers can also be bad. to much air and the fish drops like a rock. Fiz thru the side you can damage an organ or cause the fish to get infection of some sort. I always wondered how long it take a fish to heal after being punctured ?

[oldschool]

You lower most LMB down to the depth they were hooked with a topedo sinker clipped onto another rod/reel outift. I may have mentioned this before? Just slide the sinker onto the basses mouth to the throat and lower it down, lift the rod and retrieve the weight.
Bass roll that over when they are stressed from water temperature change or low DO and loose equalibrium is different from over expanaded air bladder. The expanded air bladder condition can be deflated by the bass returning to it's nuetral bouyant depth or opening a hole in the bladder. Fizzing is opening a hole in the air bladder that must heal before the bass can refill the bladder with digestive gasses (air).
The biggest harm to the bass is brain damage from quick pressue change when hooked and brought up from 50' or more. If a bass floats; birds will eat it, if it sinks the turtles and crawdads eat it.
My rule is to fish no deeper than 40', if a bass comes up from deeper water, then it gets the torpedo sinker return method.
Tom
PS: fizzing keeps the bass looking healthy in your livewell.

[Marty]

If I have a belly up fish during the tournament I fizz that fish right away! Reason if I catch one bigger I want to be able to cull it. If I catch a fish that is not limit size I release right away and the fish will take care of itself. Once at weigh-in I don’t want to be messing around with non-fizz fish.

As for the time to heal after being punctured by a needle it take the same amount of time to heal from the hook set in the mouth that you caught the fish on. I don’t worry about infections because I use a clean needle and some type of additive to my live well. The best way to fizz a fish in on its side, I have done it inside the mouth but too much blood that way for me. I always wondering if I did it right.

I lay the fish on its side and smooth the side fin back and take the top line of the fin and move back 2 or 3 scales from the tip of the side fin and insert the need. I lay the handle of the needle back towards the mouth of the fish and slide the point of the needle under the scale. Once the point of the needle is under the scale I bring the handle of the needle straight up and then punch the fish through the meat of its side (no vital organs at this point of entry). I push in until I hear bubbles!