Dion Hibdon
Culling And Fish Care Tips

Photo: FLW Outdoors/Rob Newell FLW Tour pro Dion Hibdon was able to save a 3-pound fish last week at the Wal-Mart Open, where every ounce mattered.

"Whether they're 4-pounders or 2-pounders, every ounce counts," he said. "But I think it's kind of presumptuous to assume I'm going to catch more than five, so I usually won't weigh any fish until I catch my sixth one.

"Some guys do a better job than I do. They weigh every fish they catch. I catch five first and then I'll worry about culling. I usually keep the smallest one marked after that to save some time."

Here's how he goes about maximizing his catch.

Making the Cull

"Most of the time you'll have one or two good ones and a few squeakers, so you don't have to dig through all of them every time you cull," Hibdon said. "I use the plastic Bag-em Bass Holster and a Berkley hand-held digital scale for the rough draft. The Bag-em system uses single bags that you put the fish into head-first, and it has rings to hook the scale onto.

"I keep a color-coded float on each fish to keep track of them. I pretty much keep track in my head most of the time."

Due to the size differential between the bigger fish and the one or two smaller ones, his mental tracking's usually adequate. But there are times during the heat of competition when it's too taxing to keep track.

"Sometimes if they're all close I might use one of those erasable pads," he said. "Just keep one in the boat in case you need to use it.

"If they're all really close and weigh about the same on the scale, I use a balance beam to decide," he added. "No scale will cull them any better, but I use the scale for the rough cut, since that way I have only one fish out at a time and it's faster."

Of course, minimize the time they're held out of the water.

Most tournaments pair a pro with a co-angler, and each uses one side of a divided livewell. But after the final cut, the pro fishes alone. "On the Top 10 days it makes culling easy, since you can use both livewells," he noted. Just keep big fish in one side and the likely culls in the other.

"In the summer I'll take the divider out to give them more room to swim around and be comfortable. I'll do that when I fish a team tournament too, since we don't have to keep our fish separate."

Livewell Management

Hibdon fishes under tournament rules that include dead-fish penalties; that is, some number of ounces of the fish's weight is deducted from the angler's score if a dead fish is presented at the weigh-in. Since he makes his living fishing, he doesn't need convincing that fish-care is critical. But every once in a while, a fish will expire no matter how well it was cared for.

Here he offers a few tips on some ways to minimize that occurrence, and thereby maintain not only the fish's health, but the full weight credit at the weigh-in.

"The less handling you do, the better," he noted. "I'll never put them all in the dip net to sort through them like I've seen some guys do. The best thing to do is to put a float on them the first time you put them in the livewell. That way you can grab the float and pull just one fish out to make your cull. You have to keep them wet and keep the slime on them."

Fish that have a lot of their protective slime rubbed off can become stressed, and even if they don't die that day, infection can set in and kill them later – a situation called delayed mortality.

"You want to use a good quality dip net with the right kind of coating on it," he noted. "Frabill has gone above and beyond the call to make some really high-quality landing nets."

Livewell treatments can also help keep fish in good shape. "If I'm in the situation where I'm in and out of the livewell a lot, I'll be sure to use some Rejuvenade," he said. "It gives them a little pick-me-up, and in summer it's crucial to use it. You'll lose fish otherwise."

Helping fish keep their cool is cool too. "You almost have to use ice when the water temperature is in the high-80s," he noted. "You want to keep your livewell water slightly cooler than the lake, but not too much. If it's too cold it will put them into shock. You don't want to put it in all at once, but instead, just add some now and then all day. I use block ice when I know I'm going to be doing that, since it lasts longer."

Notable

> Dion said the Rejuvenade can be a lifesaver. "I hooked a 3-pounder on a jig at Beaver Lake, which is just a giant there. Somehow it tore one gill (raker) completely out. I had heard you can rub the Rejuvenade on where it's bleeding and it'll stop. So I made a little paste with it and rubbed in on the top and bottom where the gill came out. It stopped bleeding and I weighed in that fish in great shape 4 hours later."

> You can freeze ice for the livewell in 20-ounce drink bottles, which will also removes worries about using chlorinated water, since it stays in the bottle.