Propper Fish Box Operation

[Fish Catcher Jim]

Hi Every one,
Now I know this is going to make a lot of you laugh but never the less it is a serious question for me.
I am used to live wells circulating water and keeping fish alive. Now if everything falls into place I will be fishing from 2 different boats and neither of them have live wells or fish box's yet.
One has a fridge freezer so that one is a no brainer but.......

My fishing tender will have to be set up with a fish box.
Now my questions are, how do you do this ?
I mean I have seen some bleed them and some just throw them on ice for the day and so forth. It wont be to big of a fish box being it will be built in a 15 aluminum boat.

How do I keep the fish safe through the hot days ?
Is it better to fillet them then throw on ice ?
Like I said this is all new to me and I do not want to ruin any of the fish I do keep nor do I want to put my family in harms ways. Oh and just in case it matters, both salt and frersh water.

Thank You for your help
Jim

 

[gungadin]

Use an ordinary chest cooler, fit a piece of 1/4" plastic, brace it so it sits about an inch proud of the bottom. This keeps any blood and most of the slime off the fish. Use unopened bags of ice until you catch your first fish, in a separate container (wash out after each fish) gut and gill it. Put layer of ice on bottom of cooler, lay fish on top of ice and put some ice in belly cavity. Repeat for each fish, and make sure you have a layer of ice between fish. My little boat has a sump in the stern with a bilge pump, so l am able to leave the drain plug open and just let the melted ice water/blood drain into it and then throw a bucket of water on the deck to wash it while pumping out the bilge. Do not allow any ice water to slosh around the fish, drain it off as necessary. I do not filet my fish untill l get home. Keeping the fish on ice this way, l will arrive home after about 6 to 8hrs with still lots of ice in the cooler and fish in good condition.

 

[gungadin]

Double post-----again, no idea why

 

[Fish Catcher Jim]

Thanks gunngadin,
This helps much. I figured common sense would go a long way but never the less I wanted to know for sure what the best ways were.
Have a great week
Jim

 

[Sangstercraft]

I find the shave ice you get from fish plants lasts much longer than bagged ice from the grocery store.


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[sly_karma]

Commercial salt ice is amazing stuff. Spread it in layers between the fish and a good covering over top. Last year we packed gutted and gilled fish with salt ice into Iglooo coolers and brought them back from the WCVI to the Okanagan in mid July, then not been able to cut and package fish until the following afternoon. That's two full mid summer days in coolers, yet the ice was still sitting in a thick crust we had to gently break with a hammer in order to get at the fish. More than one of us observed that a third day would not have been a problem.

 

[ZENYO]

Where does one get commercial sale ice?

Commercial salt ice is amazing stuff. Spread it in layers between the fish and a good covering over top. Last year we packed gutted and gilled fish with salt ice into Iglooo coolers and brought them back from the WCVI to the Okanagan in mid July, then not been able to cut and package fish until the following afternoon. That's two full mid summer days in coolers, yet the ice was still sitting in a thick crust we had to gently break with a hammer in order to get at the fish. More than one of us observed that a third day would not have been a problem.

 

[Fish Catcher Jim]

I find the shave ice you get from fish plants lasts much longer than bagged ice from the grocery store.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sangstercraft Hi,
Thank you for this information on the shaved ice. This is good to know.
Have a great week and geton the water
Jim

 

[Fish Catcher Jim]

Double post-----again, no idea why

Strange for every time I hit send it tells me that I must wait 30 seconds before performing this or somethinglike that and it sits there as if nothing happened BUT the post had gone through. Ithappens every single time.
It did it for this one and here is what I get...........The following errors occurred with your submission
This forum requires that you wait 30 seconds between posts. Please try again in 30 seconds.

The error message is in error. rofl

 

[Fish Catcher Jim]

Commercial salt ice is amazing stuff. Spread it in layers between the fish and a good covering over top. Last year we packed gutted and gilled fish with salt ice into Iglooo coolers and brought them back from the WCVI to the Okanagan in mid July, then not been able to cut and package fish until the following afternoon. That's two full mid summer days in coolers, yet the ice was still sitting in a thick crust we had to gently break with a hammer in order to get at the fish. More than one of us observed that a third day would not have been a problem.

Sly_karma Hi,
This is also very good to know and I like the sound of the 2 and 3 day capability at that AND as Zenyo asked..........where do you find this comercial salt ice ? Imust say I do not remember ever hearing of this before. Like the signature too !! ; )
Jim