Cleaning Your Catch

[huntest]

This may be a lame question but here goes....

When you catch some walleye or crappie, where do you normally clean the fish you keep?

I do not have a place to clean them where I generally stay so I am looking for some guidance on this matter.

Are there any regulations against tossing the remains back into the lake?

thanks!

[Dutch]

No there aren't any of those kind of regs. In the campgrounds people are encouraged to put their remains in the lake and not in the dumpsters. I sometimes put fish in a bucket, park the boat in the parking lot and go back to the bank and clean my fish because, like you, I have no place to put the guts except behind my neighbor's house and he prolly wouldn't like that very much.

[mattie]

I keep a 30 inch 2 by 12 in the back of my truck just for cleaning fish that I catch at the lake. I also carry it in a bucket with zip lock bags and a scrub brush to clean it all up after I'm done.

[Sam]

_{Years ago I set two 8' lengths of well-drilling pipe upright, in concrete, in the yard beside our garage. Between those posts I built a 8' x 3' fish cleaning table with running water, a double stainless steel sink, a hose with a spray nozzle for clean-up, overhead floodlights, plug-ins for electric knives on each side, and a metal chute leading to a hanging gut-bucket. I have a 10' x 10' compost bin I turn with a tractor and the fish guts get composted along with leaves and green stuff and added to the soil in my vegetable garden. Tip: Don't let the grandkids go barefoot in the garden because catfish spikes don't rot down!}

_{I'm kinda serious about fishing for supper.}

[grizwilson]

I carry a ironing board in the back of the truck that has a plastic board on, plus a bucket for the remains and bags electric knife. Ironing board saves my back, garage sale specials. (it would frighten my kids if the wife set up a ironing board in the house, they have never seen one used for ironing)

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

Griz, That is an awesome idea. Thanks for sharing.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I think back in the lake to recycle the leftovers is the way to go. They won't last long or smell up the shore or local trash receptacles.

[grizwilson]

Griz, That is an awesome idea. Thanks for sharing.

It is nice that I now drive a truck, for years people did not understand why I had an ironing board bungeed to the top of my suburban....

[Sam]

I think back in the lake to recycle the leftovers is the way to go. They won't last long or smell up the shore or local trash receptacles.

Yep, and I appreciate the way the "leftovers" sometimes give us other-than-bass fishermen a clue as to what's going on. Lots of times at the beginning of a trip I've looked in the edge of the water near a launch ramp and seen that somebody cleaned a bunch of crappie (or white bass, walleyes, catfish, whatever). That's good information, there - better than fish stories!

[slider]

huntest, if you have fish to clean and are around Swan Creek they have a fish cleaning station at Shadow Rock camp ground. They have lights, running water and the works. The station has a chute that puts your fish heads back in the water just below the moth of Swan Creek. I use an ironing board when I am not around there and they do work great. I take the wife along and while I fish she takes in ironing fore some fishing money! LOL