The Hunting Beast

Do you guys bleed your fish out right when you catch them or just leave them uncut till you get home?

I always bleed them as soon as I catch em. It makes for easy cleaning n better tasting fish. I do it right when I catch them because some may die on the stringer n then it to late.

Never bled a fish out. I bring a cooler and pack them in ice until I clean them. Cooling them down quickly is much more important especially in warm temps.

Just walleyes, crappies and white bass. Pretty much all I ever keep . They are much easier to clean and there is much less mess, and honestly I rarely keep fish after memorial day. If I do, they are eaten the same day they are cleaned. Taste difference? Not much of a difference in my experience. Much more difference in where you catch them from. A 29" wallleye from green bay tastes a heck of a lot better than an 18" walleye from the miss. White bass from bago or poygan are fantastic, from petenwell, ehh not so much. Still good, but not the same.

Really just comes down to personal preference. I will argue that fish from warm water taste bad compared to cold water. Even if you ice them, they aren't as good as early spring or through the ice.

Jonny wrote: I will argue that fish from warm water taste bad compared to cold water. Even if you ice them, they aren't as good as early spring or through the ice.

You obviously never had summer walleye from a Canadian lake. Where you catch them makes a huge difference. On a fly in trip we ate July walleye every single day and were by far the best tasting fish I ever ate anywhere.

I usually catch a few, then fillet them and on ice they go.

Dewey wrote:

Jonny wrote: I will argue that fish from warm water taste bad compared to cold water. Even if you ice them, they aren't as good as early spring or through the ice.

You obviously never had summer walleye from a Canadian lake. Where you catch them makes a huge difference. On a fly in trip we ate July walleye every single day and were by far the best tasting fish I ever ate anywhere.

Nope. I get offered a trip every year and decline every time. If you clean the fish right after catching them, they will be great. But freeze them, and that is when I notice the difference. Frozen fish from ice fishing, and frozen fish from summer fishing, both from the same stretch of river. Big difference. I will 100% agree that location is everything.