Keep Fish Cool

I went bream fishing Thursday at Orange Lake near Gainesville, Fla. and did pretty good. But I need to come up with a better way to keep my catch cool rather than tossing them in the live well. After I cleaned them, I ended tossing several because I didn't feel safe eating them since their flesh was more gelatinous than firm.


I fished from about 7a to 5p and with the water temp at 78, I guess that's expected when they spend that much time in a live well. I was able to get them iced down around 6p but obviously the damage was done by then.


Lesson learned, I won't be depending on my live well to keep my catch safe. I'm thinking to pick up a decent Yeti type cooler and load it full of frozen ice packs to be able to put them on ice immediately.


Anyone else got a better idea?


Thanks.

In the warm months they go on ice for me. In the winter I will do the live well

Unless you just enjoy cleaning the cooler and the ice packs, or they're only going to be used for keeping fish cool ... I'd suggest freezing some 1gal or 2liter plastic bottles and use them in place of the ice packs. :twocents

A bag of ice cubes is $3 here and I simply dump them out of my cheap Coleman cooler after the fish have been cleaned. I'd rather not spend the time and effort of cleaning ice packs of various sizes plus the related hidden cost of the electricity of freezing them all again.
One thing to think about is how many you're taking at a time and getting a cooler big enough that you have good surface contact between the cold surface and the fish. Mine is a bit on the small side and I often have to shake it around a bit to rotate the fish down into and around the ice. Otherwise the ones on the bottom are on ice and everything above that is simply stacked together and not getting cooled. They stay warm and will soften; I learned about that kind of early on.

I carry ice only in the hot months iffn I’m gonna keep my catch. I also do the gallon milk jugs frozen solid.