Fish bleeding and gutting bin
 

Seacraft junkies. Fishing has been good on the west coast with my seacraft and I'm thinking of building a fish bleeding/gutting bin to go over the side and hooked on the bow rail. I was also thinking of making an attachment on the top of it for a cutting board to fillet. Anyone else out there done something like this before? I included a picture of an example off of a charter boat's website.
I try to bleed and gut salmon as quickly as possible. This would help with the cleanup since the scuppers don't drain unless we're under way.

Great idea.... Except....
In Florida the fish has to be brought in whole ! No mutilation..:rolleyes:

I understand bleeding out a Salmon, we do not have them here :o

Would be great for Cod, haddock and pollack around here.

Yikes. You can't even bleed fish there?

We used to cut the throats on Snook, until FWC (Fish & Wildlife Commision)
gave me a hard time about this practice...:mad:

Ever since, I have refrained from even gutting any fish caught!

The laws are screwed up for sure.....

Have no plans of going to the crow bar motel for chopping up a fish.. ;)

Please do not let me discourage you from your invention !!
In California though with your current governer (Brown) surprised you are
even able to keep a fish...:eek:

CA rules in the delta were rediculous. Try to figure out where it's legal to have a gaff on board.
When I left in 2008 . . . You needed to buy a stamp to catch salmon in addition the license. You couldn't fish more than one rod at a time. The rules were very very confusing.

I'm not familiar with saltwater pacific fish cleaning rules,but on the great lakes where I fish (lake Ontario)we are allowed to clean our Salmon on the water as long as we leave the skin on,and are a certian distance from land in the harbor. This apples to New York rules.Other states have different rules.
If it's a decent day(lake conditions)we clean our Salmon on board,otherwise we get stuck waiting in line at the cleaning station.

I made up a folding cleaning board out of some polyethylene I had kickin around and it fits nicely on the top of my 125 quart cooler,and extends a few inches off the transom cap.
We fillet the fish and throw the guts overboard,and use the wash down to clean up the blood off the deck.
It works nice unless it's a nasty day with rough water.
Here's a couple pics.(Btw Big Shrimpin we can run 4 rods per guy)

Last season I started bleeding salmon by cutting their gills and dragging them in the water for a few minutes before putting them on ice.Their heart pumps out a lot of blood. Sounds cruel but it's a quicker more humane method than letting them slowly suffocate in the cooler.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/...tario007-3.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/...tario010-2.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/...tario009-3.jpg

I agree, the laws are confusing. You can gaff outside of the carquinez bridge. I think the only salmon tag needed is for the Klamath area and you can only fish one rod per person for salmon.
They lowered our Abalone take a couple years ago too and only allow 9 from Sonoma county for a total of 18. You can't fish for groundfish below 30 fathoms and even if you find a reef shallower than that it must be connected via a peninsula of nothing more than 30 fathoms. Weird stuff. Not to mention the MLPA regulations (marine life protected areas that are scattered all over the place. It is a good fishery out here though. I am happy to be able to get some ocean King Salmon locally.

Hi Bigeasy. Very impressive setup you have. I see you have an i/o too. I will keep your design in mind if the rail doesn't work out. How did you mount it to the ice chest? Do you have a picture of that? I bleed and gut our salmon then put them in the box, which is a mess. We are not allowed to fillet a salmon on the boat here.

Keith,originally I had glued some velcro to the top of the cooler and bottom of the cutting board,but as it turned out,it wasn't really needed.It doesn't slide at all.depending how rough it gets,I'll throw a piece of that inexpensive black non skid mat that's used in tool boxes on the top of the cooler,it works great to keep the board from moving.
The cooler on top of the motor box is a perfect height for the cutting board.Doesn't matter if you're left or right hand you can just turn the board around.
I made the cutting surface from some pretty thick polyethylene from an industrial/hospital laundry cart.(I don't throw anything away.)It's soft enough to protect the knives yet takes a beating.

Btw I spent my basic and AIT training at Fort Ord in Monterey Ca. What a nice area.Always wanted to get further north to see the rest of the Pacific,someday maybe.