Packing fish for airline travel

Here is my solution Coleman 42 can soft sided wheeled cooler - its insulated and has a removable liner for cleanup after - take it as carry on

Very similar to what I did coming back from the Peg in early February....full of moose meat and I was only questioned about my toothpaste in the side pocket. :rolleyes:
 
oh ya ... I have asked several times about transporting fish as carry-on, Both Canadian and US security are OK with it. Just say its 'food' for your personal consumption at home
 
Don't ship with ice. Airlines are concerned about leakage. Most don't allow styrofoam coolers. Use frozen jell packs. Some airlines seem to allow dry ice others no.
 
Don't ship with ice. Airlines are concerned about leakage. Most don't allow styrofoam coolers. Use frozen jell packs. Some airlines seem to allow dry ice others no.

Alaska Airlines allow about 5 lbs of dry ice and you have to declare it. I suspect the weight limit is a US gov regulation......
 
Mike.
I have a couple that you could have; the two would hold 50lbs for sure. Drop me an PM or email (I believe you still have it?) sometime when you are in Victoria.

That said....
I found it is the Canadian airlines that will not allow waxed cardboard Coolers. We bought a Coleman on wheels and brought 47lb of Dorado back on West jet, it only cost $20 bucks extra. Pretty sure they would have the same regs going north to south. The fish was fine when we got back to Victoria....frozen solid. I duct taped the cooler closed and it was not opened. I think it helped to get a cooler that was completely filled with the fish, if not pack in some news paper (as others have mentioned) to take up all extra room.

I agree on no need for gel/ice packs. Takes up room and weight. A 50lb 'block' of frozen fish is not going to be helped by some frozen cooler packs.


Cheers

Daniel
 
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I caution against checking a hard side cooler thru as baggage. I have had several opened up ( funny image when scanned? ) the security people dont do a very good job of re taping things up.
Also, some airport treat coolers as 'sports equipment' under the heading of 'camping' gear. Then you find your cooler at the oversize carousel... 30 mins after all the other bags are long gone
 
I caution against checking a hard side cooler thru as baggage. I have had several opened up ( funny image when scanned? ) the security people dont do a very good job of re taping things up.
Also, some airport treat coolers as 'sports equipment' under the heading of 'camping' gear. Then you find your cooler at the oversize carousel... 30 mins after all the other bags are long gone

For whatever reason they seem to open up mine at least 50% of the time. That is why I stopped taping and went to tying them. At least when they untie it they seem to get it tied back pretty well. I have even tried the show up early and say " Hey I know you guys are going to probably open this up. Can I just have a TSA person look through it now with me so that I can then secure it." The answer has always been no though. Maybe it because Alaska Airlines departing from Alaska deals with countless numbers of fish boxes and coolers but they take pretty good care of coolers. They put "Frozen" and other stickers on the coolers at the baggage counter and have had good luck so far. Probably going to have some issue this year now that I have said that.
 
I brought a cooler full of fish back from Mexico and I had the fillets packed in my cooler and then froze the whole thing. I put a couple of straps with back pack clips around the cooler to keep the lid closed. The cooler did get opened but they clipped the straps back on after they were done. Much easier for them to do than tie knots, there for more likely to get done
I had duck taped the lid edges as well and they did sort of stick it back down but not really.
 
Thanks guys- great feedback-there were a couple of ideas I hadn't thought of and I'm going to investigate which will work best for us.
 
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