Fish Hold and Live Well

[Hooper]

I am looking for input and suggestions!

As many of you have I am sure, my 23 C/C has a built-in fish hold forward and an in deck bait well aft. The hold has a drain that allows seawater to flow in and out both at rest and at idle. The baitwell has a sea cock which I keep closed almost always as I never use it. My question is how do you guys deal with the water that settles in these areas? I have found that when I am done washing the boat at the end of the day I have many gallons of water in there. After a few days at rest it becomes stale.

I would be interested to hear how some of you have dealt with this. Thanks! Hooper

[Trayder]

Bleach

I have had no issues using bleach thus far. My other boat drains all of the fish boxes into the bilge and then the bilge pump pumps it overboard. I drop in a cup of bleach into each hold allow it to drain in the bilge and have had no issues doing that.

Since I started doing this I have had no mildew stink or anything live in there. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Scott]

Hey Hoop

Trayders suggestion is a good one ....what the heck if you have city water at home its being treated with chlorine anyhow....much much lower concentration....and yes thats not going to let anything live in there and get ripe. Oh yeah ...just make sure you get all that bleach out before you put more live ones in there!!! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

As for my wells...the one right in front of the console in the deck also drains right to the bilge and I think I'm going to fix that. I believe the Silverhawk 24 has that hold sealed and there is an access plate in the hold's floor but I dont know whats under it (bilge pump???)....Right now I'm rebuilding the hatch for that hold. The old one was split to allow it to fold as you opened it but it would also let water in. I may rebuild that hatch as one piece like Steve and Fellow-ship did..I would guess that will greatly minimize the amount of water that could get down there. There is a channel in the deck around that hold to keep water from getting in there. That hold will not be used for fish anyway....to big a pain in the butt to clean...thats what coolers are for.

The Baitwell in the back ... Until I figure out a better live well system...I have a small rule pump mounted on the port side in that low area thats hooked up to a manual switch on the console. My seacock in the baitwell was frozen shut so that came out last fall ... now I need to figure out how I want to deal with the holes in the baitwell floor. I would be inclined to replace it however the thru hull acted as an inlet as well as an outlet.....so there are two separate holes about 1" in diameter within a 2"x3" area and I havent really seen that same thruhull/pickup in any of the marine stores...I havent really looked that hard either.