Last weekend as I was fileting my fish I noticed one of them was starting to smell foul. I thought it was probably an early in the day fish that was gill hooked and died fairly early in the morning. He went in the gut bucket and I felt guilty for not taking better care of him.

The next day we fished I put all gill hooked fish in the lunch cooler on ice and kept a good eye on the ones in the well. When it was cleaning time I felt like I did a better job with the knife on the cold ones. The flesh seemed setup better.

Is it just personal preferance or do you guys have a standard way of keeping the fish in the hot summer. Crappie seem pretty fragile by nature. I would like to hear what the best proceedure is. Thanks, ds