If you don't have dogs just dig a hole in your backyard and bury the leftovers. I have heard that if you have dogs you can put their poop on the pile of guts before covering it up and that will keep them away.

I compost fish carcasses in the backyard. Use a vented container and use layers of mowed grass, kitchen garbage, and coffee grounds (Starbucks usually has their used grounds available for this purpose).

If you do it right, there is ZERO smell, and you get really REALLY good gardening soil.

do you believe that it is wrong to cause fish pain with that sharp hook too?

Years and years ago I left a cooler full of fish on the balcony of my apartment. To this day I can't figure out how I forgot about them.

My roommate and I were having a bit of a party a week or so later, the balcony was crowded, when somebody reached down and opened that cooler looking for a beer.

What was in that cooler cannot be unseen. The smell was so bad I think I have blocked out the trauma. The party cleared out quickly and I learned:

A: there is no place in San Antonio to dump something so foul
B: you can't clean a cooler full of rotten fish enough to use it again
C: chicks don't find the odor of rotten fish very appealing

lol Fritz, we let a gar in a cooler for a week and threw cooler and gar soup away. No recovery possible.

When I was a kid, we put our fish heads in the garden when we planted, dig a trench, add fish, cover then add seeds. Best fertilizer ever. We did not have a dog or coon so no issues. We also had a compost pile for grass, leaves, food waste etc, that ultimately produces super black soil to mix in with your beds. If you can do that, I would recommend it.

Here's how I dispose my fish carcass. .. after I grilled my fillet, I placed the carcass on the grill then lower opening vent so fish don't get burned, then close the cover and the charcoal burned out overnight... the next light a little bit more charcoal and grill the the carcass to golden brown, take about 15 minutes...


My dogs love em.

I usually clean them at the lake and throw the carcasses in the lake. If I do bring fish home, I usually have to many to freeze or smoke like people mentioned above. I take the trash can (or cans) and dump everything in the dumpster at my wife's school about 3 blocks away. I used to just take the tall kitchen trash "bag" full of fish guts and throw them in but this backfired on me once. The bag was heavy and when I went to throw it in, the bag ripped open and fish guts went everywhere. It wasn't fun cleaning all that up by hand. Now I just close the bag good and take the whole trash can and dump the bag into the dumpster. I wash the trash can out and everyone is happy. The dumpster is near the playground so the kids are probably not happy on Monday. I only do this once or twice a year. The rest of the time I just clean the fish at the lake.