When Things Change
By Timothy LesmeisterWhen those early graphite rods hit the market, I retired my trusty Shakespeare Wonder Rod and upgraded.
When the liquid crystal displays came out on sonars I pulled the plug on the old flasher and replaced it with the LCD unit.
When the line manufacturers announced a new superline that had tremendous sensitivity, I tried it and I loved it.
I'm a sucker for innovation. Why not? Whatever can make me more effective on the water is something I want as part of my game plan.
Not everything works. I've got a closet full of magic lures that were guaranteed to put me in the record books. I'm still trying, only I'm back to using my tried and true baits.
While I've become a skeptic about certain new technologies, I still find there are products being introduced that make the way we were doing things before, completely obsolete. Consider the new GPS units or one of my favorite new products: The oxygenator by Aqua Innovations.
Do you remember those old bubbling aerators? You could drop a couple dozens minnows into your bait bucket, turn on the pump, and while you sat next to this noisy contraption you could watch your minnows slowly go belly up.
Those old bubbler systems were not only noisy, but they were inefficient. They tried to pump air - which only holds 20-percent oxygen - through a bubbler - which only produces big bubbles - to bring up oxygen levels in water that was probably too warm to get any benefit from this process.
Now we have at our disposal a system that produces pure oxygen right from the water. The oxygenator by Aqua Innovations splits the water molecule and the micro-bubbles of oxygen produced by the process resaturates the water.
There are two models available. One is the "Livewell", which is used in livewells or bait containers that hold up to 40-gallons of water. The other unit, the "Bait-Keeper", is for bait buckets that hold up to five-gallons of water. Both are battery operated. The "Livewell" runs off the boat battery while the "Bait-Keeper" has itıs own battery box that holds four AA-sized batteries and runs for a week continuously on this power source.
When Iım fishing in the boat I now just use the livewell as the baitwell. I put all the minnows and leeches in Bait Tamer bags and drop them into one of the livewells. The oxygenator keeps the oxygen levels high enough in the livewell to keep all the minnows lively and it must be good for the leeches too. I havenıt lost a one of those squiggly black baits yet.
I use shiners for catfish on the shores of the Mississippi River and have always been frustrated by the quick demise of these minnows in a bait bucket. Now that Iıve been using the "Bait-Keeper" to keep the oxygen levels high in the water where I have the shiners, I donıt lose any. You still have to add some water to the bucket every few hours to keep the ammonia levels down due to the amount of ammonia that gets produced by the waste from the shiners, but the oxygen levels shoot up right away after you add new water and this keeps those shiners alive. I catch a lot more channel cats when the bait is swimming than when itıs dead.
It's a great addition to my ice-fishing bait bucket. I don't always use all the shiners, suckers or fatheads on an outing, so now, instead of dumping the remaining minnows out on the ice, I just set the bucket of minnows in my work shop when I get home and change about half the water each day to get rid of the ammonia. The next time I go out on the ice I just grab the styrofoam-lined five-gallon bucket full of minnows and off I go. Saves time and money and means Iım out on the ice a lot longer which means I can catch more fish.
Just when you think there is nothing that could possibly come along that will make my fishing program more successful, somebody invents something that I just canıt live without. I canıt wait to see whatıs next.
To learn more about the Aqua Innovations oxygenation systems visit their web site at www.aquainnovationsinc.com or call 1-866-601-1296.
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