Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

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Zedlander
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Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Zedlander »

Hello. I have just bought a boat with a 42x48x80 fish hold. (It was originally set up to ice fish, but this season I won't have time to make a nice flush deck slush tanks.) So instead, I was going to frame and wall the sides of the hold, creating a large fish hold. I got a slush bag and figured I would use bailer bags to place fish in. The hold itself I figure can hold 5,000 pounds, roughly, and I'm not sure how to have the bailer bags made to utilize the space best, and be convienent. If I have two long bags, each bag could potentially be 2500 pounds and 7 ft. Long, which I don't think is practical and isnt best for the fish quality. I also won't be able to store much ice on my boat either, so I wanted most ice to already be in the hold, slushed. Any ideas how I can use multiple bags stacked on top of each other? Or any other suggestions? Thank you.
Once and Future
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Once and Future »

Ever seen a drop-in aluminum slush tank with an elevator plate at the bottom? If someone has time, they could make it up in a couple weeks. If your plans changed later, you could probably sell it.
Zedlander
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Zedlander »

I do know someone who set something similar up with a grate at the bottom of his fish hold, he used a winch to pull it up I believe. It's a good thought. Hmm...
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Drew »

I haven't done it myself, but I know that they make bags that you can synch shut once they are full. Then you just push them to the bottom and start a new bag. I've used an elevator before, it can be very slow to unload.
Zedlander
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Zedlander »

I don't like the slow to unload part, lol. But, as far as synching a bag shut... my only thought is that I won't have enough ice for the next bag that goes on top of the synched shut one, without having an extra tote on board just for ice.
Hans2
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Hans2 »

I have almost the same setup you have for slush tank dimensions. Assuming the task is 80 long, 42wide and 48 deep, you could run two brailers, each one 40x41x48"deep. Makes for a nice clean pick at the offload. I've had one delivery with some scale loss, but have found two things that prevent it.

1. When I take on ice, I fill the bags and slush tank to the brim, overflowing even, then start pumping water in until it just barely turns into a slurry. Keeps the fish from moving around as much.That will alsotypically keep for three days of good coho fishing, and with slushing I don't go longer than that. I do keep a half tote on deck with ice though, and plan to add another one this year. That's where my round chum and pink incidentals will go so they don't contaminate my cleaned coho.
2. All the fish in each brailer are facing the same way. Got that tip off of here, from Salty I think. Slush fish head-to-tail will scale each other pretty fast in lumpy water. I still lose a few scales on a few fish from rubbing the brailer material, but if you make your slurry as thick as you can stand it at the beginning it well help with that.
Robot
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Robot »

When you say a 'deep' fish hold I'm thinking its the 80" part that's the depth. Looking from above it has an opening of 42 x 48 and is 80" deep. Is that correct?

I have a relatively small boat and my current slush tank has and opening of 48 x 49 and is 51" deep. I have two brailer bags that sit inside that.(24x49x51)

I do basically the same thing as Hans2 does. I have my slush bag set up and my brailers set up inside it when I go to get ice, blast my brailers plumb full of ice and while I'm headed for the grounds I add some water to get the slush going.

Along with what Hans said, which are both very good points, I'd add that if you're not planning on fishing till the next day, STILL add water otherwise it will crust up and leave large chunks of ice in the 'slush' and those can bruise/scale fish. I'd go ahead and say that filling your slush and brailer bags is the only way to go when using slush. Never try and store it until you need it. Just makes for way to much ice shoveling. That's my thought anyway.

Now, for your information, (and I'm still assuming that your tank is 80" Deep) the most I've ever had on board as a hand troller is roughly 1650#'s with the above mentioned brailer bag sizes. Like Hans, I have two half totes on my boat for extra ice incase my slush gets to thin but I went ahead and stopped filling my brailer bags after about 1400#'s, on that trip, and turned one of my totes into a slush tank. The bags were getting too full. When I was unloaded by the crane it made me a little uneasy about the quality of fish on the bottom. Seemed like 700#'s on top of them was a lot.
I guess I'm trying to reinforce your concern about the 'deep' brailer bags and good fish quality. Granted this is just from my(limited) experience.

My question to you is: Other than the speed and ease of unloading (which definitely counts for something!) do you need brailer bags? Why not set up your slush tank and just put fish in that? It'll be a hand unload, yes, but... there won't be as much of a worry about fish quality? Obviously you'd drain the slush tank of water as you were approaching the processor.

Let me know if pics of my setup would help at all.

Rob.
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Salty »

Only been slushing since 89 so I don't know much, really. It is amazing how much I learn every year to improve my system. Humbling that things that seem obvious in retrospect emerge every year. Just putting in main hold insert this year so I don't have to Flood the whole thing to slush one bag.
I agree with the comment about not mixing round and dressed fish in the same tank. I also agree with putting dressed coho and kings the same way every fish to minimize scaling.
I have gone a different route on ice. I don't want the fish in the slush ice. It scales them in rough water, particularly early coho, it makes it a chore to push the fish into it (at 65 years old I am totally into minimizing effort) and if I fill the tank rapidly, which is always my goal, it means overflowing the ice out of the tank. Also, it will freeze the eggs in round pink and chums. So, I have evolved toward a system where the slush ice chills the water and fish under it and is thin enough for the fish to slip through. I add ice or circulate water as needed to keep the fish chilled.
On a bit different thought, I am unloading my round fish either every day or within 36 hours. My dressed coho and Chinnok are held a maximum of 84 hours (the fourth evening). The bacteria load is shown to really start climbing after 72 hours regardless of slush temp. I like to deliver my dressed slushed salmon at 31-32 degrees and my round around 34.
More important to me than practically any of the above is time from death to chilling. We are trying to get all the round fish chilled within a couple of minutes of pulling. This means stopping sometimes in the middle of the line to stick and pour into ice. We land our round fish into tubs, stick in the tubs, and pour into slush every 10 fish on pinks and as the tubs fill with chums or after a line, whichever is sooner. On the dressed fish we will dress every line as soon as it is reset in a bite and after running a side in slower fishing. On winter and spring kings I will run all 4 lines before dressing when scratching.
I share this not in terms of the answer, we all learn and adapt for our own unique fishing, vessel, and market situations, but as one path taken. Improving the handling ergonomics and the quality of our product benefits all of us.
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by jlc3 »

Rather than one huge slush bag, why not put smaller slush bags behind the binboards of your existing ice hold? Some bags could have regular slush, some could have thicker slush for later, some could even have straight ice. Cleaned fish could be slid into the bags with a plastic half pipe. This flexible system means you don't have to empty and clean every thing after a slow trip. You would be delivering a way better product than some one who yards big brailers of crushed fish out of their hold just to save some time.
Speaking of time, if you can't deliver within 3 days for some reason, at least change the water in your slush to get rid of some of the bacteria.
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by JYDPDX »

Not to deviate too much from the topic but since we are talking about holds and quality does anyone have any ideas for reducing the impact of a falling fish from the hatch to the slaughter. I employ the classic belly ice method and have a very long drop for the fish. Any ideas?

Please don't say 'get a slush tank' :)
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Salty »

Great question JYDPDX. I stopped dropping fish into the slaughter house about 30 years ago, while I was still icing, which I haven't been since 1990, we either handed them down or lowered them on a rope through their gills then untied the rope and slid it through when they were on the ice. You bring back bad memories. I spent one summer (1966) as the only deckhand on a troll buyer. I belly iced thousands of coho and kings. For 5% after expenses, and I cooked. We bought the fish from Dixon Harbor to Cape Cross and then ran em to Prince Rupert or Ketchikan. The 6 hour solo wheel watches after icing up and washing down were killers for this 16 year old then.
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by JYDPDX »

Hadn’t considered lowering them down with a line, seems too slow. Will give it a try for winter/spring kings, where there’s always lots of extra time!

Other working ideas that have not come to fruition: Fish Luge - Some sort of slide that impedes speed without friction or scale loss. hmmmm.

Building Slaughter ice up to a higher landing pad area.

Maybe a counter weighted Teeter-Totter……
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Zedlander »

Wow thank you for all the replies! Sorry I am just getting back to everyone now. So, Robot is correct, the fish hold is 42x48 and 80" deep. I think I came up with a solution, or at least I hope it will work. Before I got all this feedback I did quite a bit of thinking, and here is what I came up with. I will have a slush bag made for the whole hold. Then I will put in 6 bailer hooks and put two bags next to each other, each one being 42x24 and 40"deep. I have a boom/electric winch above the hold and if I am fortunate enough to fill these bags up, i will synch the bags up and lower them into the bottom of the hold. I will then have another bag which will be 42x48 and 30" deep which can be filled up, being placed on top of the other two full bags. Chances are this wont happen too often, unless I am having a really, really good day. I am not sure how buoyant the two sunk bags will be, and I imagine this will be the biggest issue I will have.

I would have liked to use the whole space of the boat, and as jlc said, slush bag my bins, but since I prefer to fish by myself, I don't want to be messing around too much below deck. I agree with you guys though, about having a thick ice slush. I do tend to keep the slush thicker with coho, and I like to keep the ice in the bag with the fish. I also orient the fish all the same direction. I am hoping that by synching the bag tight it will help limit the amount of movement the fish have. And I will also have another tote on the deck which will have ice in it and can be another emergency fish hold. I dont know if this is the perfect solution, but I hope it works, as I don't want to dump too much money into a temporary fish hold. Another reason to split the fish up into three different bags inside the fish hold would be to reduce the amount of max. weight each bag will be.

What do you guys think? Thanks again for all the input. -Zed
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Salty »

Can you get totes in there?
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Zedlander »

Hmm, im not sure. I hadn't thought about that. I dont see why one wouldnt fit... I would loose a lot of potential fish holding space though.
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Salty »

Totes come in infinite sizes and shapes.
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Re: Best bailer bag set up for a deep fish hold

Post by Zedlander »

Ok. thanks Salty. I will look into custom totes or misc. sized totes as an option. Thanks for the info.

-Zed
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