Evaluation of Blue Catfish Blood Glucose Levels When Exposed to Various Livewell Conditions

Catfish tournaments are growing in popularity among catfish anglers in Kansas. These tournaments mostly occur on reservoirs with restrictive or protective regulations for Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus that limit the size of fish that tournament participants are allowed to weigh in. As a result, catfish tournament anglers have begun to campaign for length limit exemptions for catfish tournaments. Unlike black bass spp. and Walleye Sander vitreus tournaments, there is little to no research on tournament-related stress and mortality regarding catfish. This study aimed to evaluate Blue Catfish blood glucose levels, which is a secondary response to stress, before and after being exposed to different variations of livewell flow, size, and crowding using a readily available portable blood glucose meter. The Accu-Chek Guide was found to be capable of detecting differences in blood glucose levels of Blue Catfish, which were found to increase significantly following simulated livewell stress. However, this study did not observe any differences in blood glucose levels of Blue Catfish exposed to differing livewell flows, different sized livewells, or differing amounts of crowding of fish within a livewell.