Anyone care to offer an opinion of whether it's legal to clean your fish before returning to shore? Here is the text from the regs:

"Fish or shellfish may be cleaned or portioned
while in the field with the following exceptions:
It is unlawful for a angler to fail to retain proof
of compliance with species, size, number,
weight, sex or wild or hatchery origin
restriction, if such restrictions apply, until the
angler is ashore and has finished fishing for
the day."

Sounds to me like it's legal as long as you can prove the fish was over 22".

You got it sideoff, as long as the head and tail are there I see no problem with it.

NEN

I always stun the fish, then bleed it until it stops. Then I "princess" dress it and pack the belly full of ice immediately. If its good for pinks its great for coho and chinook. I've never had anything but awesome tasting salmon. I fillet them when I get home.

I stun and bleed them as well. Trouble is, my cooler is small and the fish have to bend to fit inside. Once they stiffen up they are hard to fillet unless I straighten them out, which in turn tends to bruise and pull apart the meat. This makes for an ugly looking fillet. So I'm going to start cutting them on the water. I guess I'll save the heads & tails on the smaller ones in case I get checked.

Ever think of getting a bigger cooler?

Ever thought about it? Yes... but then I would need a bigger boat. And believe me, I think about THAT all the time :-)

Space is at a premium in my little boat. A cooler large enough to solve the problem would interfere with the walk around space on either side of the console. I've measured it.

A big cooler loaded with ice is an ablsolute necessity in my boat - right now I carry one around that is 42 inches long in a 16 foot boat and I have used every bit of it. One of the major criteria in selecting my boat was room for the cooler. When I had a smaller boat I still carried the big cooler and to hell with legroom. Fish quality is extremely important to me, I bleed, clean, and ice all my fish on-board but don't filet them until I get home as it's too easy to contaminate things in the field, not to mention the obvious difficulties of proving it was large enough or had an adipose clip to the warden!