Hints and Tips: Accessories

• Freezer Bottles

• Fish Towel

• Freezing Bait
  

Freezer Bottles

To keep bait or your catch fresh on hot days, most anglers use a large cool-box. To keep the temperature low, you can use the blue ice-packs you can buy, but they do not last very long and their effectiveness in a large cool-box is questionable. Instead, fill some 2-litre plastic drinks bottles nearly full with tap water, and freeze them. Two bottles in a large cooler will stay frozen most of a hot day, and the fish on the bottles will be nicely chilled when you get them home. At the end of the day, wash the bottles down and put them back in the freezer for the next trip. They will last and last, and are so much better than those blue ice-packs.

P.S. Arron has reminded me of something I had forgotten: salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh, so make up a salt solution in your bottles and freeze it in the coldest part of the deep freeze. It will stay frozen even longer than a bottle of plain water.

P.P.S. If drinks bottles rolling back and forth inside your coolbox irritate you, use square section plastic milk bottles.

Fish Towel

Why is it that the towel disappears just when you have slimy hands and want to pick up your rod? Here's an idea to keep it handy. Punch a hole in the corner of the towel, and better still put a brass eyelet in it if you have access to the little tool that does it, and either buy a plastic shower curtain ring or nick one if you think the FPO will not notice. Use the ring to clip your towel to the nearest grab handle or handrail. Then you will never loose it!

Freezing Bait

This is one of those "why didn't I think of that" ones. When freezing bait, it is important to put bait in a bag and exclude any air so the surface of the bait does not spoil with freezer burn. This works for mackerel and any other freezable bait. First get a bucket full of cold water, then place your bait in the freezer bag. Lower the bag open side up into the water, keeping the top above water level, and the water pressure will squeeze most of the air out of the bag. Zip the top of Ziploc bags or tie regular freezer bags while the water is still squeezing the bag, and remove from the water. Freeze the bag in the fast-freeze compartment and your bait will be stored as well as it can be without commercial kit. Thanks to Arron, who found this idea floating around in his memory bank somewhere.