How to Store Fresh-Caught Fish on a Boat
- 1). Pull out the hook from freshly caught fish and quickly move them to a live-well fish storage tank on board the boat. Overcrowding a live well with fish will lead to higher fatality rates. Read the owner's manual for your boat to find out your live well's maximum capacity. Small vessels that are not equipped with a live well can use a large bucket full of fresh water from where the fish were caught.
- 2). Remove any fish that die in the live well or on the way there and cut their belly open with a sharp filleting knife. Use a large spoon to remove all the internal organs and rinse the flesh under clean running water.
- 3). Store cleaned gutted fish in separate sealed zip-top plastic freezer bags in a cooler full of ice. Place the cooler in a shady spot on the boat.
- 4). Kill and gut all the living fish when the boat reaches shore and add them to the ice-filled cooler.
- 5). Keep the fish on ice or in the refrigerator just above freezing temperature until you are ready to fillet or cook them.
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