Keeping ice on the kayak

Thinking about making a more intentional effort to get fish on ice faster. From a boat, not a big deal, just bring reg cooler along. On kayak, kinda tricky because limited space, and saltwater fish add up to a large volume rather quickly. I'm thinking about DIYing some kind of bucket/cooler/bag solution. I'm not on a Hobie, otherwise I would probably go with their soft bag, but even still, those are pretty pricey.

I have a smaller soft cooler that fits in my tank well sorta-okayish but is kinda the wrong shape and not really big enough. 

Maybe just a bigger cooler bag is my best/easiest/ cheapest option? Any suggestions?

Big fish bag.

You can legally fillet rockfish on the water.

Halibut may also be filleted on water but that one is a little more complicated. Fillets must be a certain size and if i remember correctly, each side must be one whole fillet. Not halved.

Pls dont hold me to this, it has been some time since i have looked this up. Regulations may have changed. Always better to familiarize yourself. 

If i am off base. Someone please chime in with correction.

Edit : Entire rockfish fillet must have skin and lingcod only one inch. Lincod fillet must be 14inches

6) California halibut taken from or possessed aboard a vessel south of Point Arena
(Mendocino County): Fillets must be a minimum of 16 and three-quarter inches in length
and shall bear the entire skin intact. A fillet from a California halibut (flesh from one entire
side of the fish with the entire skin intact) may not be cut in half fillets. However, a fillet
may be cut lengthwise in a straight line along the midline of the fillet where the fillet was
attached to the vertebra (backbone) of the fish only if the two pieces of a fillet remain
joined along their midline for a length of at least two inches at one end of the fillet.

If considering. I personally would fillet in shallow kelp to improve chances of the landlord not investigating. 

Al

Scupper plug your tankwell and flood it with saltwater and cover it with burlap. Then keep ice in a separate soft cooler and replenish the slurry as needed.

Big fish bag.

Kinda the direction I think I need to go. Any recommendations?

You can legally fillet rockfish on the water.

Halibut may also be filleted on water....

I think I'm pretty ok with a knife, but on a kayak... IDK man, sounds like a missing finger to me, haha. On a boat with a decent sized cutting board, could probably make that work.

Scupper plug your tankwell and flood it with saltwater and cover it with burlap. Then keep ice in a separate soft cooler and replenish the slurry as needed.

I have thought of this before, and I think it would work well on cool days.  I'm pretty clumsy though, and my tank well doesn't have very high sides, so maybe I need to fashion some sort of lid or something to make this work best.

You could also save room by just cutting heads and tails off.

You are going to run into a problem though with room........ I foresee a nice halibut.  Good luck !!!

Speedy I dn't have a fish bag I use a wet gunny sack. I'm usually not out for more than a few hours at a time. If I was regular catching temp sensitive fsh I would def. use a fish bag.  Lotsa guys on the board have fish bags.  chime in, fellas.

Bushy

I row with the light weight cooler bag and medium sized blue Ice pack but in the Stealth fish hatch so it's secure and out of the sun. Cheap, easy to replace when it gets too funky and holds enough 95% of the time.

Speedy I dn't have a fish bag I use a wet gunny sack. I'm usually not out for more than a few hours at a time...

Bushy

Wet ditty bags, gunny sacks, and burlap sacks work really good.  Keep the bags wet.  On hot days, I'll toss in a couple of frozen water bottles just to be sure.

I use a kill bag with ice or frozen water bottles.

Picked up a small soft kayak cooler when it was on sale - it came w/ a dry bag. Made a liner out of bubble insulation. Throw the ice in the dry bag, then in the liner, then into the cooler. The setup holds ~15lbs of ice.

Fish are usually too big for the cooler, so I throw the fish into a poly bag, then into the dry bag, place it in the cooler so the ice is on top of the fish, and then fit the liner over the side of the dry bag that sticks out of the cooler.

Works pretty well. Fish pictured came ~4 hours after I bagged my first fish, and that first fish was way cold w/ plenty of ice remaining.

Oxygen is the main decomposer of flesh.  The ice is not necessary if bled and gutted until landing.  If you fillet it onboard the clock starts ticking.  I'm a wet burlap blanket guy, plus da wiyah' and brain spike as you prolly know. If I had a little ice on board I would ikijime and gut, pack the cavity with ice and maybe zip tie shut.  Seems like a bit o' work though.   Hope to practice this soon.  See ya' on da wattah'

Thanks fellas for the ideas! I like the ice pack/frozen bottle idea, would work really well with the cooler bag. I really wish I had access to a covered well like on a Stealth - that would make this whole thing a lot easier.   

For the burlap sack folks, how do you keep it from getting gross? Or do you just replace the sack often? I tried that for a bit, but it got pretty stinky after only a couple trips.

Thanks fellas for the ideas! I like the ice pack/frozen bottle idea, would work really well with the cooler bag. I really wish I had access to a covered well like on a Stealth - that would make this whole thing a lot easier.   

For the burlap sack folks, how do you keep it from getting gross? Or do you just replace the sack often? I tried that for a bit, but it got pretty stinky after only a couple trips.

Rinse the burlap and put in the sun.  Seems to self sterilize...

I have a non-Hobie fish bag that was less expensive and may be better than the Hobie one. The inner liner bag where the fish go is separate from the insulated outer bag. You can put ice packs between the two layers. The inner bag can be cleaned out separately from the insulated bag, which stays cleaner. I got it at CCK but it may be available online.