Catch and Cook

[smccarter]

I have not kept a fish in 20 years. But if I decided to have fresh trout one night is there a good place to clean your fish?

[joe a]

Catch them, knock them on the head, and clean them right there in the stream.

[fearnofishbob]

The crawfish and other stream life will feed on the intrals so stream would be my suggestion.. Or you could run by the fish market and and let these little fellows live another day !

[Bran]

I always clean them in the stream. I counted about 15 large crawfish on a short stretch of stream the other week, some were huge! If I saw that many I'll bet I didn't see about 30 or 40 more in the same stretch. They'll definately clean up the mess before it gets too far.

[Rog 1]

The above posts are spot on....when you are ready to leave the water find yourself a comfortable rock near the water and pitch the remains out into the fast water....they won't last long....in all the years I have fished the mountains I have never seen the remains from anyone cleaning fish....my cousin and I did come upon a couple of poachers once above CS30 and counted more than 20 sets of entrails where they had been cleaning their fish

[Troutman]

Do you guys use a small creel bag or a cheap rope stringer when keeping fish from the park? I've always wondered how well those inexpensive green south bend creel bags actually keep caught fish cool during the summer months.
When I keep bream to eat I have a cheap poly rope stringer tied to my beltloop and leave the fish in the water as I'm wading, just have to be wary of turtles and gar.

[No Hackle]

I use a zip lock bag and clean them in stream before I go home.
Lynn

[NDuncan]

Originally Posted by No Hackle

I use a zip lock bag and clean them in stream before I go home.
Lynn

Ditto. Although I do have a nylon creel(man purse) for carrying the ziplock, camera, and other things I take (a lunch if I am going to be gone all day, bottle of water, etc) I put the fish in the ziplock just because I don't want them contaminating my lunch or water... maybe overboard, maybe not.

I know the cheapo canvas creels (used to have an eagle claw one at Dicks for $ will keep the fish good and cold even if you can't rewet it for a few hours.

[Grannyknot]

Originally Posted by No Hackle

I use a zip lock bag and clean them in stream before I go home.
Lynn

pretty much the same here. I have a small mesh potato sack that I keep inside the zip lock bag. Every 30 minutes or so, i'll pull out the potato sack and dunk it in the stream.

also, I usually knock them on the head and clean them right after I catch them. No sense it making anything suffer a slow death in a clammy creel.

[Bran]

I haven't developed a good plan on the creel yet. I string one of those poly stringers tied to my belt just like you said and it hangs on every rock on the river. I carry a couple 1 gallon ziplocks in the truck for after I clean the catch and some hand sanitizer in a little bottle.