To bleed or not to bleed....

To think you're going to have time to respond in a meaningful way with either a shark or a large pinniped is foolish, IMO.  Just be ready for the aftermath.

Here are two examples:

just rock me to bed eric, jesus

New to kayak fishing so I have a question. I've seen people keeping the fish live on the stringer. So those of you that bleed the fish, do you keep them live on the stringer until you're ready to head out, or do you bonk and bleed them, then keep them on the stringer?

Oh man... that was quite awesome

To think you're going to have time to respond in a meaningful way with either a shark or a large pinniped is foolish, IMO.  Just be ready for the aftermath.

I did once see a small-medium sized pinniped chasing what looked like a large jack smelt before. The speed and agility was quite amazing. Can't be for certain, but I think I may have ended up nabbing that Jacksmelt in my castnet    Usually they win tho

Holy crap that sea lion video 

Sorry for threadjack, rudes.

those of you that bleed the fish, do you keep them live on the stringer until you're ready to head out, or do you bonk and bleed them, then keep them on the stringer?

Remove gills, let loose in net briefly, put it on a stringer in your tank well and move on.  The complete gilling kills all but lingcod pretty quickly.

There is no "live on stringer" unless you're putting your catch (live or dead) over the side - that's a bad idea and should never be done.

I bonk fish in my net, put them on a stringer, cut their gills to bleed them, leave them in the water until they stop bleeding, and then put them in ice in a cooler which I carry in the rear cargo area of my Revolution.  When I catch a large fish, I usually also gut the fish to further bleed it, and so I can shove ice into its body cavity.

I say I put them "in" ice because I put half of my ice in a mesh bag which I plop down on top of the fish.  If you just put ice cubes or crushed ice in your cooler, no matter how much you try to scoop ice on top of the fish, it tends to end up on the bottom of the cooler, underneath the fish.  And if you have a lot of fish in the cooler, the fish on top of the pile are a long way from any ice, and can get warm.  That's why I always put half of my ice in a mesh bag which I put on top of my fish.

That sealion video is crazy Eric.

Here’s my process:
-Catch fish
-Put on gameclip
-Rip gills out with pliers
-Dangle in the water right next to my yak for about 5 minutes to get the blood out (its way more viscous in the water and bleeds out faster...and dead fish bleed slower so I never bonk em...except halibut of course).
-Toss stringer in the tankwell and cover with a wet burlap sack (keep burlap wet and dunk fish occasionally)

In reality though, I should be slicing the belly open and ripping the guts out after bleeding...to minimize the amount of worms migrating from the gut to the flesh as they die. It gets messy though.

I have not done the bleeding of fish but will now. Was not sure of the proper method but after seeing the comments on how it is done I will be doing this in the future.
Thanks for all the tips. Know I just gotta catch some fish!!

When fishing saltwater I have always bled the fish immediately and stowed them on ice in a soft-sided cooler. Feel free to bleed out in the water, I can't imagine it makes a shark encounter any more likely than it already is.

By the way... thanks for the ice-in-a-mesh-bag idea! So simple yet so practical.

Follow-up question: for those of you who cut gills with shears, what do you recommend? Normal scissors or wire-cutters, perhaps? I have always used a knife but have cut myself several times, one time so badly that I bled far more than any fish I have ever bled out

I'm currently using a pair of shears which I bought at a commercial fishing supply company.  They're like a real heavy pair of scissors, and they didn't cost very much.  You could probably find suitable shears at a cooking store or restaurant supply store, but I don't like the cooking shears which have a crescent-shaped curve in the half of their blade towards the hinge, probably for chopping through chicken bones.  For a while I used a pair of medical shears, which cut real well, but the tip of the lower blade had a right angle bend so the tip wouldn't jab the skin of a patient when cutting through bandages, and that bend made it hard to thread the tip of the shears through gills so I could cut them.

In addition to using my shears to bleed fish by cutting their gills, I use the shears to cut up cut bait and to remove cut bait from hooks.

I keep it light on the water and just carry a cheapo fishing multi tool tethered to my PFD.  It has a fold out knife and line / wire cutters on the needle nose plier part.  The knife (or my hands) are fine for cutting / ripping most gills, and the wire cutters get in there and snip gills on something hard to cut like a big lingcod. Though some nippers or shears would be easier as the plier part would not be in the way.

I have some Milwaukee construction shears (really just super duty scissors) that I have been using for fish cleaning at home (removing fins for cooking fish whole, etc.), and if I wanted to add shears for the water they would be great, though I don't think they are stainless.  But every extra item is something I have to pack, carry, unpack, wash, dry, and maybe lose, and my minimalist kit already feels like a lot to me.

I keep it light on the water and just carry a cheapo fishing multi tool tethered to my PFD.  It has a fold out knife and line / wire cutters on the needle nose plier part.  The knife (or my hands) are fine for cutting / ripping most gills, and the wire cutters get in there and snip gills on something hard to cut like a big lingcod. Though some nippers or shears would be easier as the plier part would not be in the way.

I have some Milwaukee construction shears (really just super duty scissors) that I have been using for fish cleaning at home (removing fins for cooking fish whole, etc.), and if I wanted to add shears for the water they would be great, though I don't think they are stainless.  But every extra item is something I have to pack, carry, unpack, wash, dry, and maybe lose, and my minimalist kit already feels like a lot to me.

Shown below are the fishing tools which I carry on my kayak.  Each tool is on a retractor, and I attach several retractors to a loop of cord which I hang over the base for my fish finder and the base, and several others to a loop of cord which I hang over the base for my rod holder.  This makes it real easy to put the tools on and take the tools off my kayak.  The tools go in the mesh pockets next to my thighs on my Revolution.