Livewell for SX230

[Zak77]

Wanted to see if anyone here has a creative option they've used for a livewell for their jetboats???? I have a 2007 SX230 and overall love this boat. Added some fishing rod holders to the stern and will be adding more as my 7' one piece poles do not fit in the locker. This pasts summer was our first summer with the boat and we did a fair amount of fishing with it. I prefer ocean fishing, as we took it to Cape Code for stripers and down to Oak Island NC for mackerels (caught a ton of sharks, but no mackerels). While in both areas I used a bit cooler with air bubblers for a live well. Had it bungied to the swimming platform. Worked ok, though in Cape Code most of the small mackerels we caught for bait did not last long in there. Wanted to see if anyone has ideas for a real working livewell for their boats that did not come with one.

We did rent a 23' seafox center console while in the Keys over Thanksgiving and I did toss the idea of selling the yamaha for one until I saw the price of those things. I'll be keeping the SX for a bit longer.

Thanks,
Zak

 

[Scottintexas]

can't help on the live well but did you see this great mod about fishing rod holders in the ski locker,

https://jetboaters.net/threads/gmtech-custom-fishing-rod-holding-tubes.16169/

 

[Bruce]

When we fish we mostly do so from the stern and place an ice chest on the swim deck to store the catch in. I have considered adding a pump and hoses to make that a temporary livewell.

The ice chest under the starboard front seat could become a built in livewell. It already has a drain. We have stored fish in it before but find it inconvenient to carry the fish from stern to bow.

 

[Julian]

I've wondered about this same issue....looked at this for a while and wondered if I could plumb it in with quick connects and leave it on the top step while fishing.....but not done anything towards it yet.

 

[Zak77]

can't help on the live well but did you see this great mod about fishing rod holders in the ski locker,

https://jetboaters.net/threads/gmtech-custom-fishing-rod-holding-tubes.16169/

Great thread! Thank you for sharing. I'll have to take the cover off and measure the fuel tank to see how long of poles I could put in that way. Very cool idea. Though I did try to get my fuel tank hatch off over the summer to try and run my transducer cable through and gave up as I could not get some of the screws out. But I'll give it another try if that will help with fishing poles.

I might look at buying a 15-20 gallon livewell tank and adding the tubes/pumps etc to keep the bait alive. For fish we catch and keep (very few as my daughters always want to throw everything back) we put them in a cooler or I'll start using the front built in cooler. We rarely use it for drinks/food as it's not that easy to get to/in. Find a softsided cooler (fake Yeti from Walmart) works well.

 

[Bruce]

@Zak77, this was my fuel tank hatch experience

https://jetboaters.net/threads/my-experience-removing-the-fuel-tank-access-hatch-to-add-sound-insulation.6309/

 

[Zak77]

Wow Bruce! I'm hoping the ones I could not get out will be slightly easier than what you had to deal with.

Penn was having an insane sale on their reels and picked up a few at half off. Putting a Spinfisher 3500 on my new St Croix tidewater and the other a Spinfisher 6500 on my cape code classic, 6'jigging rod. Cannot wait for warmer weather!!! First scheduled trip is back to NC in March.

 

[Scottintexas]

@Zak77 I didn't notice you had an 07, same year as my boat, check out the known issues link in my signature below for some good info,

also, if the fuel hatch wont work, I'm not sure if we have as much room as the newer boats you could remove the rear block off wall to run the same tube setup towards the rear cleat

 

[Julian]

@Zak77 I didn't notice you had an 07, same year as my boat, check out the known issues link in my signature below for some good info,

also, if the fuel hatch wont work, I'm not sure if we have as much room as the newer boats you could remove the rear block off wall to run the same tube setup towards the rear cleat View attachment 86472 View attachment 86474

Is one of your cleat nuts loose (or is that why you were in there?)

 

[Scottintexas]

just to be clear I was not and will never be in there but yes the cleat was loose causing my daughter to assume the duty