Making a live well from a cooler

[nicemustang]

Alright pros, going to start some tournament fishing this year. However my sport boat doesn't have live well. Last year I saw that quite a few guys had a live well made out of a big cooler. I've contact SWAT and they said that's cool to use.

My question is if anyone on here has done this. Any advice to offer or "lessons learned"? Any pic of how you've done it? It's too bad that I have all this space in that big hull that is basically wasted.

Oh well, any help or advice is appreciated.

[BBJTKLE&FISHINGADVENTURES]

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0042764019009a&type=product&cmCat=SEARCH_all&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&Ntk=Products&QueryText=Portable+Livewell&sort=all&N=0&Nty=1&hasJS=true&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form23

Check that out . You could drill a hole on the side of your Cooler , and attach it to the outside but the hose on the inside , seal it up with Silicone and Splice the cable and attach it to a 12 volt underwater camera battery . I bet it would work like a hot damn . Ill keep searching . Ive been wanting to build one aswell , as it nice to keep Bait cold , and Fish fresh for when you out in the hot summer days . Heres a start and for 30 bucks not bad , plus a cooler .

[fishnab]

I was looking for the same and found a pump system at BPS for that purpose. I think the pump was under $50.00

[Kim473]

I just saw some nice big coolers with drink holders on top at army&navy today. Check for a bilge pump in the boating dept at canadian tire or at army&navy might be cheap.

[nicemustang]

I was thinking more of a pump type system. Where I could also use it pump fresh lake water and drain it as well. A circulating bildge pump would work, no?

[hogsmoker]

Nicemustang

Go to the fishin hole, I believe they sell the livewell kits there pumps, hoses, etc. for making them from a cooler.

[big zeke]

I have an I/O with a swim grid and it's a fairly simple fix...I just tapped off the cooling water line between the leg and the block and used that to feed the circ pump (just a fairly small bilge pump), then use that to fill a cooler that is strapped to the swim grid. The cooler has a 1/2"overflow line mounted near the top of the cooler body that dumps the excess water back to the lake. I have a small valve on the cooler drain so that I can drain it when not in use.

I'd guess if you had an outboard you could take water from a thruhull fitting below the waterline and feed that into a bilge pump feeding into the same cooler. Make sure the brackets the cooler sits on are fairly sturdy as the weight of a cooler full of water pounding thru the waves can be substantial.

One thing to keep in mind is that a cooler installed on the back of the boat will have to open facing you (ie hinges are on the rear of the cooler), the cooler will have to be set back off the rear of the boat so the cooler can latch shut.

Good luck...keepping the fish cold is a necessity.
Zeke

[Kingfisher]

I have used a cooler before. You will have to get an airator too keep the oxygen level up. Or you'll have to keep changing the water way more often. You want to keep the water in the cooler cool. Make sure it doesn't heat up in the sun. Sometimes it's easier said than done.

Have an electric pump and lots of hose. There are a lot of lakes out there that have alge blooms. So you'll need to get your pump below the alge. Make sure you can lower the pump below the alge level.

That kit from the Fish'n Hole sounds good.

Rob

[jusfloatin]

Here's one I made up for trout. As you can see I only keep the small ones:D

I used a 360gph pump for airiation and I use a 500gph thru transom pump to feed the live well.

[Kim473]

That looks great. The cooler at A & N is bigger than that one. And Yes big zeke has some really good points. Wieght 10 lb/gal make sure it is mounted good so you dont put it through the bottom of your boat or something else. I would also watch where I put it in the boat for performance of the boat,conveneance, and safety.

[big zeke]

You are right Kim, the layout is key. If you run an outboard and a kicker you might not be able to get too much of a cooler installed, you need to set the cooler far enough off the centerline so the big engine can steer and still keep the cooler within the width of the boat (otherwise you can only dock on one side and you can't tie-off another beside you). If you run the lakewater (bilge) pump reglarly I don't think you'll need an aerator...I can't really say as anything in my cooler is dead. If pump control is a concern you used to be able to buy a "livewell control panel"...just a little plastic panel with an adjustable timer so you're not running the bilge pump & killing the batt.

One thing to watch with a setup like this is overall power draw. If you run lotsa electonics (GPS, fishfinder & radar) along with a couple of downriggers and this little pump, a kicker (even with a charging circuit) might not replace what you are using...even worse if you don't have a charging circuit. It's tough to pull start a main engine...much worse to pull start an I/O.

I keep my oars but I never like to use them.
Zeke