How do you keep your catch ?

[Garyoutlaw]

Just curious how do you keep your fish alive while on the water, live wells coolers fish baskets stringers ect.

[steelguy]

keep my fish in the live well, but always have a small cooler filled with ice for sodas and any fish that look like they may not make the trip home alive.

[Backlash]

Live wells

[mistertwister]

Garyoutlaw,
This story is barley 48 hours old. Fishing at Reelfoot Lake in TN the past 4 days. Had the crappie in the livewell, temp outside was upper 80's. Blue the fuse to my aerator while trolling through a shallow flat. I think one of two things happend. I had hooke a gar in the pads and while wrestling with it the back of my boat dug into the bottom. May have sucked some junk up in the plumbing. Or fish scales got caught up in the recirq module and burned up the motor. Either way, i learned my lesson. Put a screen on the intake of the thru hull plumbing, and put a strainer in the drain of the livewell. My brother ended up hand aerating the livewell with a gatorade bottle until we got back to the dock. That night we used a cooler half filled with ice and i would probably do that again.
mistertwister

[dixieangler]

I use a cooler or ice chest with one or two refreeze bottles inside to keep my catch on ice until I get home to clean them when I'm on my ODC 816. Same if I'm on my fishing buddy's motorized canoe. No fish odor to draw unwanted guests if the lid is sealed. I use a bucket with some water in it if I'm bridge fishing down around the rip rap to keep them alive until I get home to clean them. I won't ever use a stringer anymore after gars and other toothy critters made short work of my stringer that had a mess of bream on it.

[Matt Smith]

Throw 'em directly on ice. The quicker they die and get cold, the better they taste.

Fish that stay in a livewell all day get stressed and taste different.

[roybuoy]

livewell for me

[J White]

I'm with Matt - throw 'em on ice (and listen to 'em flop :D)
may make them a little slimier cleaning them, but doesn't bother me.

[beagler]

I use a fish basket. I have been known on several occasions to forget about the basket and take off down the lake.:D However I will starat o carry a cooler now that the weathers warming up.

[croppy1]

Put em on ice. Can't go wrong there. When you get in off the lake they are nice and chilled and ready to fillet.

Don