Catfish Question

What is the general rule for cleaning and eating catfish if they die before you get them cleanded?

Keep em one ice and you can wait a full day if you have to.

I keep them on ice until i clean them .

if the gills are white or pale pink they are spoiled

I usually have to walk a ways to my fishing spot and some of them die on the stringer before i get done fishing?

Take an icechest with you if you can. Don't use a stringer, put em straight on ice. That's what I do.

We slit the tail to bleed out, put on stringer and let that do it's do and once stop being feisty then put them on ice...

Seemed to work okay?

as long as they are on ice they will last awhile.

Then lugging ice may not be an attractive solution if you hike in a ways.

Catfish are pretty tough and can breathe air. An old time method was to keep them in a wet burlap bag (feed sack; aka tow sack). You might try that, not as heavy as an ice chest or ice.

If you want to go the ice route then look at the hand carts surf fishermen buy/build... rod holders, tackle trays, ice chests all on wide rubber tires.

http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/6386097/Gear_cart#Post6386097

like that one.

I have been using a fish basket as opposed to a stringer simply because a long time ago as a kid I had several fish rip their lips to get off the stringer. I forgot my ice chest the other day, go figure, and the 8 cats I had caught survived the 45 minute car ride to my house and were still flopping when I started to clean them, they are very hardy fish.

i just bought a basket last night, gunna start using it.

I should also mention that our cooler is one of the 'cube' jobbers with wheels and a handle. I run our chair bags through the handle, strap the tackle on the top and then wheel the lot down with poles in hand. Not TOO gangly that way.

Ice wise I cheat. I take 2 liter bottles we're done with and fill them mostly full (since water expands when frozen) and throw them in our upright... reusable, way cheaper than buying ice and no need to drain the cooler and make a mud pie.

+2 on the basket. Stringers are IMO the worst fishing invention ever for any fishing trips longer than an hour or so. They're too hard on fish too boot. If you just invest 7-10 dollars in a wire fish basket you'll stop losing so many fish before you're ready to clean them.

If you put your catfish in a basket cut off the 3 fins before you do and it will help the fish and you later when you pull them out. But like Tom said, look at the gills and make sure they are still red. If they are white or really light pink then the fish has spoiled.

I was gonna say the same thing. Milk jugs work also and the ice lasts a little longer in this heat.

good advise and ideas. I like to get to a spot a little before dark and usually end up fishing all night so this info is very important since i have lost a couple fish before cleaning due to the length of time i am there. thanx for the tips and keep em comin

Cut the gills and let them bleed out.Animal activist will have a field day on that one.And the best part is when you get to yank the innards in front of children.

TheGizzard rules.

Catfish will live a long time out of water and especially if chilled.

If they are dying as quick as you seem to be saying then you must be putting the stringer through the gills and mouth instead of through the mouth. If you use a basket it does not matter.

Catch em put em right on ice, their brain will suck the majority of their blood into it as a survival mode. Next day fillet them out and it reminds me of crappie fillets with a few dots of blood. Beats getting home and cleaning em, the skin will be extra slimy the next day, grab an extra rag. A friend of mine gave me this info from a veterinarian.

Also keep in mind cats like cooler water, so you toss em up on a 115 degree dock in a wet sack, or if fishing in a power plant lake where the surface temp is a lot warmer than deeper water, I found out the hard way fill your livewell with surface temp water and 30 minutes later it was curled up like an over cooked shrimp. Ran lines in the Colorado River and the wet croaker sack worked wonders, they would stay 5 hours in there, but the temp was spring time temps. Something else to keep in mind!!

Summer & winter are a tad different, as to temperature-wise. If out for awhile in this heat, you better have a "fish" ice chest handy. Don't forget ice. I think the rules say you can't even gut them while out in the boat. If I'm wrong, Chad/Redneck will correct me on that one. Or someone else here.

Due to thermocline (lack of oxygen in the top half of most lakes) once out of the shallows, and the sun (catfish get sunburned in case you did not know), probably a string, cord, or stringer might be good for a few minutes, but not very long. Same probably with the basket, if you stay out in the heat & thermocline.

Naturally, bleeding them out will help preserve the meat better than leaving the blood in it. Of course, gutting it also would help in this heat (but read my note up above).

If the gills turn white, or a very whiting pink or slight pink, you can mostly say that one is no good. The gills need to be either red, dull red, or pinking red. If pink, you are playing teeter-totter, in other words, it could be a toss-up.

If & when you get to a fish cleaning area or home, if it checked out above, but you have one of theese 2 problems, I would toss it. Better safe than sorry.

1) If the meat smells (you will know that smell, if your nose is working at all), as you are peeling the outer skin off with fish skinning pliers (if you clean your catfish that way).

2) Or doing it the same, the meat shreds as you try to skin it.

Now when you are cleaning or guttting Channels & Blues together, you will notice that the Channels have a certain stink to them (when their cavity is opened). Blues or Yellows do not emit that particular stink, as least from the cavity. Once you learn the difference in that smell & the one when they are too far gone (meat is bad), it too will help you in determining good or bad if a catfish is questionable.

In my experiences, yes, catfish can somehow last awhile in a wet burlap bag (but not forever). From my experiences, the Yellows outlast the Blues, which outlast the Channels. If they day is not hot, and we leave the aerator on in the big 50+ gallon tub, usually the channels are dead an hour later as we pull in to home base.a few Blues are still alive, and usually all Yellows are.

Yellows not only have a much larger gill setup, but can also put themselves to sleep (a sort of hibernation mode).

Hope this helps.

By the way what are the top temperature readings some of you guys are getting form south Texas on up into OK. I was in Michigan during August back in '05 and the lake where I was staying never got above 65 degrees. I wonder if their thermocline is any different with the lower temp water.

Hehe... I made son filet his own... he and DD both said EWWW a lot but he got the job done.

Way better in my opinion than feeding kids mystery meat that even YOU don't know what all it has in it.