Sick of my fish freezing so.....

[harvey lee]

I use my Ice Well or a bucket with slush and a little water.

[NCLaker]

Today's Tackle works great! I had mine full of the days catch in a 8" hole for the entire afternoon. When we emptied the fish out to leave, they were still very lively and floppin' around.

[Christopher Quast]

2 words slush/bucket

[Far-I]

I used slush and snow in the bucket today and it worked great. I had a few nice 'bows and i wold just rotate them around periodically. When i got home they were still soft, and not even slimy! Can't believe it took these posts to turn me onto something so obvious, but i guess thats the beauty of this site.

As for the ice well. Looks great (especially for taking a bunch of pannies home at the end of a day). Its not something i'll buy this year, but when ice fever hits next fall count me in! It is also the kind of thing that you'd love to get for a gift but not neccesarily buy.

[DoubleLunger]

Try catch and release. They never freeze then. ;0

[Far-I]

I release my fair share. I love eating those little guys too much tho! I have been trying to eat mainly wild game for meat, and for my lifestyle it has been working well.

[catflisher]

For some reason, the powers that be made fish incredibly tasty to some folks..I am one of those folks...I will never buy a fish..Coastal has marvelous fish, and they are as fresh as you can get...But still, you walk in, and it smells like fish...Before my fish go into the pan, you can sniff the meat and smell nothing...Nothing beats a couple fresh fish.Now as far as texture goes,..( which is important to me )..a fish is no longer fresh if it freezes on ice, and you bring it home, clean it and cook it...Freezing prime fish flesh does diminish it..It cannot be as good as an unfrozen piece of one that was wiggling 2 hours ago..Slush/snow works excellent, altho if it may thaw, I try to keep the fish on top of the ice/slush/snow...I don't like to have fish sitting in any standing water..I've caught fish in the morning, put them in snow, and they still were wiggly that night...suspeded animation...This also allows you to bleed them...a small cut at the gill body connection...Now thats good to do if you plan to freeze them, as I suppose that if there was a bit of blood in the fresh fish, it would just be making it's own gravey...Blood in meat tho' is Not good for freezing, so bleed 'em if you can...Good Night!

[hanronson]

Slush/bucket for me too. I use a rectangular bucket that cat litter comes in though, instead of a round 5g. bucket. It fits perfect behind the seat rail of my Trap Pro and has a lid that is partially hindged. I'm not sure how many gallons it holds but it had 35lbs. of litter in it when I bought it. I think it's around 4 or 5g. You can get them at any Cub store. My Frabil minnow bucket fits perfect in it too with the lid down when it's empty.

[blackdog1101]

I used the slush method this weekend, works good. But I had a mishap yesterday. When I get home I usually leave my bucket by the front door to bring in the house after I get my stuff put away, changed, etc. Then I bring it in and clean the fish. Well, I forgot the bucket, and we went out to a church function for the evening. When I was getting ready for bed at about 11:00 I remembered the fish. Doh! I had a big frozen block of fish!

[marshmallow]

Ice well looks great..if you have an extra hole in your perm,depending if they are being used.. I may purchase one though.. We always use a 5 GAL.. with fresh snow, and/or slush..Filled one up this weekend, "SPEC'S -n- "GILL'S"..