Cheap Fish Storage Bag

Author: dunebuggy

Category: Equipment, rigging & preparation

Created on Tuesday, 12 October 2010 13:24

Written by Stuart Whitehouse

I have always carried an esky on my kayak but it has never been for the purpose of keeping fish. It  is just a small one I use to keep my food and drinks cool. As for keeping the fish cool well, at one point I had the inside of the front of my revo lined with polysteyrene and sealed the joints with duct tape. This was quite effective but when the thick sticky blood from a 1 metre longtail tuna oozes it's way into just about everything, it tends to get a little messy. Not to mention stinky.

I have seen professionally made fish/cool bags that retail for as much as $150 and at one point I had the opportunity of getting the $150 bag for $100 but I couldn't even scrape that up. Buying suitable materials to make one myself proved to be somewhat tricky, and expensive. A recent link on yakass which let to a site about a guy in Hawaii had many photos and in one photos I saw the answer to my dilemma. A surfboard bag.

I then started searching ebay and the like for boogie board bags and such and found various types as low as $40 + postage. When my wife Kate wanted to go to a particular scrapbooking shop the other day I took advantage of the fact that there was a Cash Converters store right next door and went for a wander. There were none on display but upon asking one of the staff they disappeared to the back room and returned with the only 3 remaining board bags in stock.

This thing must have been laying around forever I think. The price tag was over $400 and I thought, surely they're dreaming. Not being a surfer myself I have no idea what a good quality board bag costs but, to cut a long story short I walked out of there with the makings of my new fish bag for only $15. Woo hoooo I thought. Now I just have to make it fit in the front hatch.

Why put it in the front hatch and not the rear deck? Personal preference really. I have other things that occupy the rear deck and also, a few kilos of fish added to the weight of the ice I carry is best, in my view, kept as low as possible. Keeping the centre of gravity in mind. 

A nip here, a tuck there, some Selley's all clear in the joints and sewn up with 24kg game line that was lying about, a bit of duct tape to dress it up and bob's your uncle. I am not finished yet but my hope is to have a bag that lines the entire front of my Hobie Revolution.

This bag has a heavy silver outer shell with a thinner white layer of the same material beneath that, 5mm of foam and then another layer of the white plastic. The beauty of a bag is that it can be removed and cleaned thoroughly and that it will be a cleaner and somewhat less stinky than my previously used option with the permanently fixed polysteyrene.

If it doesn't work out, well at least I have only wasted $15 and a bit of time. I will update you all on how this works out and add photos of the finished product if I don't stuff it up.