the Scalesaver additives

The Story behind the scaleSAVER

The scaleSAVER system is the result of nearly 15 years of research and testing. Let us being at the beginning, one of biggest challenges of a live bait fisherman, is keeping the baitfish alive and active, especially on a hot summer day! On many reservoirs the baitfish of choice is Shad, be it gizzard or thredfin. As with most open water schooling fish, they are easily stressed, and as a result very quickly turn from lively, fish attracting bait, to floaters in the livewell.

After years of research into the causes, from water quality to physiological changes within the fish themselves and countless days on the water testing and adjusting various solutions, a combination was found that provided almost amazing results (see the case study below).

If the system works this well with baitfish, how about gamefish? The answer is simply "even better"! The biggest stress for gamefish in a livewell is environmental, being structure relating creatures they appear not to be as stressed by the fact that are contained in a livewell, but more so by water quality and other environmental conditions.

 

Why use additives?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions, along with a lot of lore as to what the additives do. First and foremost, the additives are used to help counteract the biological and physiological response to being captured and placed in an enclosed space. When fish are caught and placed in a livewell, their instinct takes over and they attempt to flee. The harder they attempt to escape the more the more severe the physiolocial changes that cause them to try and escape. The fish expend increasing amounts of energy and secrete increasing amounts of adreniline in order to try and escape. Eventually the fish's blood chemistry is so out of balance and they are so exhausted they expire.

The scaleSAVER additives are formulated to achieve three goals: 1) minimize the physiological and blood chemistry changes so that the fish more quickly relaxes. 2) minimize the amount of energy expended by the fish to maintain their blood chemistry, and 3) improve the

The scaleSAVER system quite simply sets up the livewell to be as close to a life support system for the fish you catch as can be made. Based on your species selections from our database (you simply select the specie you are fishing for in the control system). The unit will adjust the livewell temperature and add the required additives to give the fish you put in the livewell their best chance for survival. But it doesn't end there. The system monitors the water quality and will sound an alarm (or with optional equipment even add fresh water to the livewell) should the water quality begin to degrade beyond the point that the system can adjust for, allowing you to take action long before the water quality begins to stress the fish.

A Case Study

It is July 2 6AM the temperature is 83 degrees with a water temperature of 80 degrees. We are out today to do some stripped bass fishing. We move to a small tributary on the lake and cast net for gizzard shad, after a short period we have 129 shad in our 23 gallon RECTANGULAR uninsulated livewell (Dimensions are 13"x40"x10"). We leave the tributary creek to move to our fishing area at 6:30 AM. We begin fishing around 7:00am. By noon the air temperature has reached 95 degrees and the surface water temperature is 82 degrees, At 3pm we break the 100 degree point. Throughout the day we are using 3 shad per hour on our lines. The bite is very slow, as we reach 10:30 pm the bite picks up and we boat 4 fish in a five minute period. Although there are 14 other boats in the vicinity, all fishing with gizzard shad, only ourselves and one guide boat are catching any fish. Having our limit of two each, we head for the boat launch and ultimately we head home. At this point we have used 53 baitfish out of the livewell. As we head back to the boat launch we empty our livewell we release 74 Shad and find 2 floaters.