The picture above is my boat. Those seat boxes are the result of Jim (77SceptreOB) and my thoughts on how best to incorporate well positioned seating and eliminate the need to have free floating coolers on the deck. Both of the compartments beneath the aft facing seats will be used for ice/drinks and maybe for bait. Neither would be big enough to be a fish box unless your sole focus in on fish like that black bass above. You will see that I also incorporated 2 cut outs for tackle drawers. I have selected some 3 drawer boxes made from Starboard that will go into the holes.
Alternatively, I could have made one side a fish box that goes the full length of the seat box and kept the other side as is. Quite honestly, I didn't think about it but I am not sure if I would have done it anyway. The seat box is about the same length as the fish box that is in the floor so it would not have enabled me to keep larger fish. Most of the time we will catch fish that are adequately sized for the fishbox in the floor. We will be making some deep trips offshore where large wahoo and dolphin are expected. On those trips, I will probably just take a large cooler that will fit across the rear of the cockpit. Given that your boat is an I/O, that's probably not a good option for you.
Good luck with it all. I expect to get mine back from the boatyard in the next few weeks and then it is my turn to start doing work.
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