I like to hold my fish in a cage for several days and clean them all at once. The cage I have built now is cumbersome and lifting it with 100+lbs of fish is no easy task. I have a dock where the water can be 5 ft below the dock. Anybody have any plans or pics for a cage and or lift system?

Take a 55 gal plastic drum and drill appropriate sized holes in it.
I have some buddies that have 1.5" holes all thru theirs for keeping fish in. They used a hole saw.

If it is that heavy , you need a pulley system and a
ATV winch. run the winch off your boat battery.

MO

I made mine out of garden welded wire fencing from lowes. Just cut and shaped into box. Bend the cut ends over and tie together with wire. Put a opening door at the top. Added tubing around the opening. Connected the four corners with rope and added a pulley. Its lightweight and hold lots of fish. Has lasted 6 years now and still looks new. My 9 year old has no problem pulling it out of the water full of fish with the pulley.

Doesn't it bother you "sportsmen" that such devices are illegal? TPWD regulations state:

. Any fish not immediately released that are retained by using any type of holding device such as stringer, cooler, livewell, or bucket are considered in your possession and must adhere to established protected length and bag limits. While fishing, it is illegal to be in possession of more fish than the daily bag limit or fish that are within a protected length limit.

If you are keeping 100+ pounds of fish in a live box you are usually keeping more than the daily possession limit.

What if it is on private property? Would that make them any less a sportsman?

You bring up a good point.

If the fish were caught in public waters it is still illegal to hold more than the possession limit on private property.

I think cleaning more than 100 pounds of fish is pretty questionable in any case. Are they being eaten? Are they being given to the neighbors? Are they being sold? Our fish are not an unlimited resource. These pictures of hundreds of crappie laid out on a board make me wonder why.

It doesnt say its illegal, just cant have more than your daily limit. I normal don't have that problem. It usually takes me more than one day to bag a daily limit.

what if he has 2 50 pound catfish in there or 5 20 pound catfish that would be legal

Redseal, your assumption that a legal limit will normally weigh less than 100 lbs. really doesn't take into account what a good catfisherman on a good lake is capable of. Also what if more than one person is fishing. You really don't have enough information here to assume someone is breaking the law or being a game hog. I'm jus' sayin'.

don't bother me a bit, what bother me is all the people who want to jump in and declare things
illegal when they don't have all the facts.

Back during my juglining days, it was very common to catch 100lb per night. Many times this would
be only 5 or 6 fish , with two people fishing.

Catfish are underutilized on many of our waters, crappie are one of the most prolific spawners and their
numbers cycle up and down regardless of the fishing pressure.

Possession limit does not apply at your residence , you can have as many fish as you can legally catch
stored, what is the difference between the freezer and a live box in your private pond ?


MO

100# of fish is nothing.... u can have blues, yellow cats, crappie, bass..... wont take long to get to 100# if you limit out on all of those.





AS for the op, dont go with the plastic barrel.... it is ridiculously hard to lift up out of the water. Build a cage by first building a fram out of wood so that it will not sink. Dont forget a door that is plenty large. Then cover it with chicken wire. The smaller the better so you can keep snakes out. The hardware cloth works real well.

U should probably put some rope handles or somethi on it for carrying it around. Dont go too small on the box, but dont go to big either.

Here is the only pic i have, you can kinda see how it is..... and that may not be 100# of fish in that cage, but it is a good 60# or more....wouldnt have taken many more big cats to reach 100.

To the Jr Game Wardens, isnt a limit of catfish 25? So if they avg'd 5lbs the that would be over 100 lbs right? Maybe I want to fish for several days and ended up with 30 catfish. That would only be 10 per day. It is not hard to get over 100lbs. If possession is twice the legal limit that is 50 catfish. Pretty easy to get to 100 lbs. BTW, Im on a large,800 acres, private lake so none of that applies. I like to have fish frys and give fish away to people in my large extended family. I think folks should try minding there own business. I asked about a cage and lifting it because of the weight. It makes sense to me to only get my stuff out and clean fish and clean up the mess once in three days instead of three times in three days.

I built mine out of of used galvanized fence top rails. Then covered it in galvanized panels with hog rings and aluminum fence ties. It is light and easy to move and will never rust.
I will try to get a picture.

This is pretty much how my box is currently built. I wanted to see if there were better ideas out there. I think I will go with a small cheap electric winch and swing arm with a pulley on it to help lift it. Thanks everyone for your input.