Livewell questions...??

I am thinking about making a homemade removeable livewell for my boat and I have a few questions...

First what would be the smallest possible cooler that I could use to hold 5 fish in a tournament??

Second about how much extra weight am I looking at with this livewell on the boat holding water, fish etc.... approximation??

Thanks for the help with this...

I would say that you need at least a 40 qt cooler bigger if possible.
If you fill the cooler almost full figure 64lbs for 8 gallons of water..
my boat has 2 20gallon live wells in it
Wayne

Well.. if you look on the home page you'll see my post about building a portable livewell. I used a 25 gal rubbermaid container and thought that would work well enough - and it works great as long as you don't have 3 fish larger than 5lbs... I have had up to 6-7, 1-2lb bass and it's fine.

I had a tourney at a lake where one boat pulled out 5 fish all over 5lbs, and they have a 120qt cooler... and they looked cramped in that. I upgraded to a 70qt cooler, and if you plan on catching a big limit and want to keep them alive, you don't want to go smaller than that. I am more than likely going to be upgrading to a 120qt if I ever find that the one I have won't keep them all alive.

Here's russo1o's post on homebuilt cheap live well. https://www.tinboats.net/index.php/Projects/building-a-livewell.html

I think a 100 qt cooler is the perfect size. we use a 120 and man does it take up some room.

Just to add a thought. I don't fish tournaments very often so I am going to make a portable pretty much as russ describes but It will be in storage most of the time. I take a small 30 to 40 qt. cooler full of ice for non tournament fishing. There going to end up in the frying pan anyway. (panfish an salmon)

dunk50 said:

Just to add a thought. I don't fish tournaments very often so I am going to make a portable pretty much as russ describes but It will be in storage most of the time. I take a small 30 to 40 qt. cooler full of ice for non tournament fishing. There going to end up in the frying pan anyway. (panfish an salmon)

Click to expand...

exactly what I do in my big boat. cept' I use a little rock salt with the ice to freeze em.

Macgyver said:

dunk50 said:

Just to add a thought. I don't fish tournaments very often so I am going to make a portable pretty much as russ describes but It will be in storage most of the time. I take a small 30 to 40 qt. cooler full of ice for non tournament fishing. There going to end up in the frying pan anyway. (panfish an salmon)

Click to expand...

exactly what I do in my big boat. cept' I use a little rock salt with the ice to freeze em.

Click to expand...

ROCK SALT, do you suppose watersofter salt would work. I buy 10 #50 bags at a time of mortons pellets??? never thought of using salt!

not sure about the water softener salt. is it in large pieces? just like making ice cream , salt and ice will freeze whatever , solid. when I go camping , I'll go trout fishing every morning, bring them back , gut them and then put them in an ice , rock salt mix , they freeze up and keep for days .