I have been looking for ways to get my ice to last longer. I freeze old gallon milk jugs add salt & water then when frozen, throw them in the fish box. ( 28F is the freezing temperature of salt water )
I also can fit a 5 gallon bucket in freezer with salt water.
Where can you buy block ice at 0400 ? I saw some places in N. Charleston , I live on Johns Island.
Public’s sells dry ice , they close at 2200 open at 0700. At 0700 I’m halfway to the ledge or Edisto MPA for trolling. How would you put in your fish box? Or just keep it in another 48 quart cooler until needed?
I made some homemade YETI coolers by watching YOU TUBE , I’ll see how they work soon and give an update.
I’ve dealt with dry ice , liquid N2 before, but ?
Maybe you can talk my wife into a new boat and ice machine while your at it.
Thanks
I use the DEF jugs that are for diesel trucks, clean good and put about a teaspoon of Clorox in each , fill them and freeze they work great and have a built-in handle, We use four in the fishbox (about 20-25 pounds each) and still have plenty on ice at the end on the day!
Do you need ice for drinks or is this just about keeping fish cold? Buy some rock salt, add unbagged ice, and then fill with salt water. It will make the coldest slurry that will actually be cold enough to freeze your catch. It will last all day. You can add ice from your cooler if it warms up. It is the salt and salt water that does it.
How much ice are we talking? Keeping ice in the deep freezer (block ice or regular ice) helps a lot with keeping it cold longer, but you’re limited with how much ice you can fit in there. Never messed with dry ice.
1994 Hewes Redfisher 18
Conchfish 178 build in progress…
Buy a 150# ice maker and bags off EBay. I make a 50# bag at home for something like $0.55 each, most of that cost is in the bags. Got a big chest freezer we store it in then throw the bags in the truck, then boat. It’s an investment up front but between the house, boat, truck cooler and everything else it paid for itself in less than a year. Bought it used at PoBoys in Georgetown.
Mark
Southport 28TE
2X Yamaha F250
Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal? I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy but they’re definitely dirty. But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way.
“Life’s tough…It’s even tougher if you’re stupid” John Wayne
I do this when I use my big cooler & I just need ice to keep things cold & don’t need ice cubes for drinks. I buy a crate of the 8oz water bottles & freeze them. Toss them in the cooler & then wash off & refreeze when I get back home.
You can buy used freezers for little or nothing I have one with 5 shelves I bought for $50 I bought 5 Sacrete mixing tubs at Lowes for $6 each and trimmed the rims so they fit in the freezer I keep the freezer in the barn and fill the tubs with a water hose they make about 80# ice cubes and last for a week in a cooler.
I keep bagged ice in 1 fishbox covered with an insulated fishbag. I put the fish in another box. I just grab a few bags throughout the day and cover the fish periodically. No issue.
In my little 22 ft Pioneer I can get 340 lbs in the fwd deck box. We pull the boat up to the ice machine and transer it from the ice machine to the deck box with 5 gallon buckets. That is the clean ice and we use it in the fwd port and stbd fish boxes as necessary. Everything is well insulated and the ice will last for days. Always plenty for keeping fish overnight on the boat, cleaning fish the next day, etc. Used to put frozen gallon jugs in their as well, but it would get too cold and rock everything up in a solid mass. Don’t bother with them anymore.
Brought this topic up a few months ago. Someone suggested freezing 2 liter coke bottles. I started doing that and haven’t bought ice since. I also started freezing half a gallon of drinking water in a 1 gallon jug, then filling the other half with drinking water. Stays cold all day in my Igloo Sportsman (Yeti killer).
Had a 50 lb chunk in a 120 qt cooler destroy a case of bud before we got to Edisto Banks one n AM after that we chipped up the ice with an ice pick into quart size pcs when we moved from the big cooler to the fish boxes! Keep smelling beer all morning, and my guys ran out of beer down stairs and went to change coolers and and went to get the cooler off the pilot house roof and it was like a bath tub with beer and foam! Glad I had a cooler of water between the bunks in the bow. Very unhappy crew rest of the day. They had to drink vodka and water on the way in. I never touch alchol in a boat! Had a real bad experance in high school.
