Last weekend I had minnows in my Engel bait cooler from about noon Friday until Sunday night. It isn’t awful, but there’s a little smell to the cooler and the netting inside. Last summer I let some sucker minnows stay in there a little too long (too expensive to throw away, right?) and that smell seemed to go away eventually, so airing it out seems to help. Just wonder if anyone had any other ideas, like bleach or something else. Thanks.
I usually just throw a little dish soap in there and make sure to wash it out really well. Havent noticed any minnows dying with the next use
Hot water, whipe it out good, take the net out and let it all dry out completely upside down.
A dash of bleach gets rid of almost anything.
Fill the cooler up with cold water and drop in a couple tablespoons. Let it sit for 10 minutes and rinse it out 
I use a quart size garden sprayer with a little bleach in it for the same thing. Use a weak solution in cold water. It works great in bigger coolers and on cutting boards. Spray on….and rinse off. Tip them up to dry.
If you can….let the sun dry them off, it’s even better (UV rays).
I can say from my own experience that doing nothing and then leaving more minnows in it for a week in the hot garage is NOT a solution to your problem.
My 6 gallon frabill bucket got nasty recently.. dumped in gallon of vinegar and then a box of baking soda, let that sit for 20 minutes. Rinsed out then filled halfway with water and added 4 seltzer tablets letting that soak another 20 minutes. Worked pretty well
B-man described how I clean mine perfectly. Little bit of bleach does wonderful things.
Dish soap works great … rinse good and ready to go!
All coolers I own get cleaned with toilet bowl cleaner with bleach…
2 summers ago we left in cloak of darkness one Wednesday night and left the cooler with all the deer sticks, a half flat of crawlers, and other things sitting next to the boat in front of the shop. Got home 5 days later and that thing was nasty. We tossed it all into the dumpster and looked around for something to use to clean it up. All we had was toilet bowl cleaner in the bathroom. I put the toilet bowl cleaner in it and filled it to full of water and closed the lid. Unloaded the truck and boat and headed home figuring I would deal with the cooler in a day or 2, most likely just throw it away. Got back to it 3 full day later and opened it up, dumped the water out and rinsed it out. Never scrubbed a thing, just dumped out and rinsed it. It looked brand new on the inside and had no odor. Now I have a bottle of scrubbing bubbles with bleach in the garage just for cooler cleaning.
I use Baking Soda and warm water. Then let the aerator run for a while, or just let the mixture sit in the Engel for a while. Next use a rag or sponge to finish the job. Rinse and I’m all set.
I also do this in my Livewell as it works great in there also.
I can say from my own experience that doing nothing and then leaving more minnows in it for a week in the hot garage is NOT a solution to your problem.
Pickeling time. Be sure to sterilize the jars properly.
Bleach is corrosive-Hot water and some oxyclean, let the water sit till cool (several hours, overnight) Rinse, dry in the sun-clean and bright white. Best tip any of you got all day. Also if you have a white scrub brush with dirty grease soaking with oxyclean works like magic-no stock in the company, the generic works too.
This is an easy fix. Lime. Done it a lot. Works on pit toilets in my past life and it works on my live wells and all things stinky. No need for chemicals. Bleach smell is hard to get rid of
Be careful with bleach. I’ve used that in the past and thought I rinsed it out well enough only to have my next batch of minnows die faster than normal.
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