Im a big fan of bleeding fish. I think it not only helps with the taste, but the biggest reason that I do it, is because cleaning fish is way less messy if you bleed them out first. My boat has two live wells, a smaller one in the rear and larger one in front. When i catch a fish, first thing i do is make a small cut with scissors on each side of the gills. It doesnt take much to get em bleeding and youll know when you hit it right. Ripping the gills works too, but not as well IMO, plus you can get some nasty cuts doing it. Once the fish is bleeding, toss it in the rear livewell on which the plug is open. After a few min, toss it in the front livewell which is plugged and jam packed with ice (no water for me). When you get home, cleaning the fish will hardly make a mess at all, and the fillets will be white as snow. I also find that filleting half frozen (or very cold) fish is actually easier than air temp.
If you do not have two live wells, there are other options as well, you can bring a cooler packed with ice, bleed the fish in your livewell and then throw them on ice. Or, what I used to do, is bring a good ‘ol stringer and bleed the fish on that before tossing them into a livewell with ice.
Either way, I think youll be happy with how much easier/ cleaner filleting fish is after bleeding them. I started doing this about 5 years ago and havent looked back.
