My boat has 2 live wells, and a fish box. I haven't quite yet figured out the fish box. The live wells are small, presumably for bait, and have water pumped into them, and drains. The Fish box is large, but has no water going to it. It has a drain and sometimes just from boating around there seems to always be an inch or so of water in the bottom of it.

I would like to use this fish box for fish but I guess it needs water plumbed to it, or am I missing something? Right now I just use it for storage but things in there get wet.

Type of boat??

yes it would help if we know what kind of boat it is. make will help alot. some of them have a box that has a plug in the bottom with no pump. it is made to put a plug in the hole and put ice in the box (no water)

Baystealth 2030

Now that you mention it I guess you could plug it and fill it with ice but it seems like it would be more useful to me as a live well.

Here is a link to the boat

http://www.berniesboats.com/baystealth2030.htm

it is made to put ice in and put fish on ice.

Yup, ice chest. The standing water in it concerns me though. Does the surface under the lid have a lip to keep splashed water out ?

Thanks for the reply. Any advantage to the ice?

I have always just kept fish alive in the livewell while fishing?

I guess I am just not seeing why you would want to ice fish on the boat. Seems easier to keep them alive then worry about dealing with a bunch of ice.

I don't think there is any splashed water getting in. There is no plug in the bottom of it. The water seems to be coming in from the drain. Not much water at all really. Maybe a half gallon or so seems to stay in the bottom when the boat is on the water.

Could just be the location of the drain. My old Skeeter had a front livewell and the drain was about 4 inches from the bottom. Made no sence. Ended up drilling a hole in the bottom and installing a plug.

Really big stripers seem to have high livewell mortality. Lucky for me, I rarely have really big stripers on board.

a thru-hull fitting, pump, few feet of garden hose and a toggle switch, you got yourself a 33-gal livewell.

Not familiar with your boat. Does the box drain to a thru hull fitting or to bilge? If it is draining to a thru hull fitting the water in the box is coming up thru the fitting from wave action. But even then it should freely drain right back out unless the thru hull and fish box are below the water line. If it is draining to the bilge, that doesn't seem right to me. There shouldn't be so much water in the bilge area to back up that much water into a fish box.

When the surface temp of the water is 80 plus in the summer it will almost be impossible to keep more than a couple of good sized fish alive in there unless you have a constant supply of freshwater being pumped in.

Yellow cat is correct. The Ice box is for Ice and Putting your fish you know you will be taking home. The life well is designed to keep fish alive so you can cull the smaller ones. You can have water in the live well depending on its location and if the bottom of it sits under water line along with the plumbing it may leak water into it. Weather you use it as storage or as an Ice box, Just use a plug to plug it up.

does it have a actual drain cover on it. or is it just a hole. i am not understanding you clear when you say it is a drain. if it is just a hole put a plug in it and put 20lbs of ice in it and keep fish on ice like what has already been said it will be very hard to keep alive 3-4 fish during the summer.