Fresh fish

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Garry

Garry

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Was planning a Mid May fishing trip for a week . Was looking for advice on the best way to keep your fish fresh . Thanks in advavce
 
Its simple and easy. If you are going to keep a fish then just put it in a cooler with at least 10 pounds of crushed ice. (You can also use a frozen ice from home in gallon jugs or frozen pop bottles, or ice cubes, etc.)

Commonly used wire "fish stringers" should only be used in cold water lakes (50 degrees or less). Putting a fish on a stringer in Lake Powell water warmer than 60 degrees is not wise if you want to eat the fish. Since UT allows maximum harvest of stripers and walleye it is best to invest in a large cooler which can be placed in your boat and used as an extra seat or in some other fashion.

The ultimate choice on how to handle a freshly caught fish would be to fillet it within 10 minutes and then put the fillets immediately on ice.
 
You will also find that the quality of the filets is better, and the process of filleting less messy if you bleed the fish (any fish). I just cut or tear the gills and toss them in the live well to bleed out. After 10 minutes or so I put them in the cooler or filet them right then. This way you can catch a pile of fish during a hot bite, then put them in the cooler Or process them once the bite dies....
 
We use a wire mesh fish basket for crappie, large mouth and smallmouth. This works to keep them alive for the day and as we approach our limit numbers, we can start picking and choosing which fish we want to keep. For walleye and stripers, we us a long rope/cord stringer that gives them the chance to get down to cooler water. We just started trying to bleed the stripers before filleting by breaking a gill arch just before we head for camp to start filleting
 
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