cleaning fish blood and guts! What's your secret

[wesal1]

Just something to talk about. What is your way of cleaning the boat after a hard fishing trip ie 40 miles offshore catching your limit on fish. sometimes during tournaments I get real lazy and may not clean till the last day. This gets real hard due to the fact that the blood has been baked on by 100 degrees of all day fishing. The only thing I know that will make that fiberglass look new again is Ajax and alot of elbow grease. I would really like to find somekind of chemical that will not kill me but will make the blood stains just fall off. I clean my house with tsp and bleach the mildew will just fall off but in the boat the mildew will fall off no scrubing required leaving the blood still hanging on. you have to scrub just as hard as with Ajax. Maybe I will have to stop being sooo lazy but then again maybe you guys have a better idea

<br /><br />Thanks<br />Wesley

 

[JB]

Re: cleaning fish blood and guts! What's your secret

Hi, Wes. It's hard to beat a bucket of salt water after each fish, with maybe five seconds with a sponge added, then a fresh washdown at the dock or ramp. Blood is like a credit card. . . pay it now, easy, or pay it later, HARD.<br /><br />Bon Voyage.<br />JB

 

[wesal1]

Re: cleaning fish blood and guts! What's your secret

I think I must have a learning problem. I have a salt water wash, but I seam to miss spots such as on the bow of the boat. But as always I give the boat a good scrubing when I get home from the 2 or 3 day weekend of fishing. Just looking for a ez way to get out of the work keeping my boat looking good. I want my boat deck to blind me from the sun because it's so clean on that first day (you know got to look good in those tournies)I have seen some of the boats that get traded in to the dealers they look very bad going in, but after they clean them and have them ready to sell they look great (my old boat) Do they use somekind of special chemical?

 

[JB]

Re: cleaning fish blood and guts! What's your secret

Wal Mart sells a little pressure washer package that makes things at home much easier for me (I am on a coop water system where the pressure rarely reaches 60 psi). Right around a hundred bucks, includes detergent spray unit as well as the hard spray. Use it on Sunshine III regularly, but haven't had blood/scales/slime to deal with. Might be worth a try.<br /><br />Red sky at night.<br />JB

 

[wesal1]

Re: cleaning fish blood and guts! What's your secret

Now a new question, I have a new contender so I do not have this problems but my buddy who I fish with quite often has a small problem. He has a 97 capehorn the fiberglass on the deck is off white is there any way to get it back to the original bright white state? We did a little testing in a small area and found that bleach will restore it to that nice white. Well if we do the whole deck I am worried that it will ruin something or come out splotcy

 

[krosemond]

Re: cleaning fish blood and guts! What's your secret

Wesal..there was a company in Stuart, FL called St. Lucie Chemical. It had a product called SLX, that has hydrochloric acid in it.<br />Cleans boats great, but don't forget the gloves, it is tough on the hands. Haven't seen it in stores in NC though. <br /><br />What kind of fishing are you doing that splatter blood all the way to your bow?

 

[wesal1]

Re: cleaning fish blood and guts! What's your secret

My large fish box is up front. When I leasure fish mostly I am looking for snapper, ling, amberjack, or grouper. When I tournament fish I look for mostly Kings. For example this weekend I was bottom fishing tied up to a rig looking for some snapper. I was fishing on bow of the boat we just tied up. Normaly what I do is with the first two or three drops I let down some live bluerunners with the tail cut off to catch the large snapper first. Then I normaly fish with some dead poagis for the rest of them. But on this drop I hooked something pretty large I could not tell what it was I thought it was a amberjack but it did not go for the rig it went out from it. To make a long story short it was a 60 pound king on the bottom that run me all around the boat. The person that I had with me did not gaff it right so it bleed all over the place<br /><br />Ps If there was a tournamant that weekend I would have won a boat on that fish

 

[mako]

Re: cleaning fish blood and guts! What's your secret

I've used bleach for years on my boats and have friends who have done the same. I've never had a problem and never heard of a problem. I've always diluted it well maybe an ounce in a 5 gallon bucket of water and use a brush and the deck should look great. As a comparison I've shocked my pool with about 600 ounces of bleach for 10,000 gallons of water and it never hurt the vinyl liner. Thats about one ounce per 16 gallons I think. I would think a fiberglass deck is much more durable than a vinyl liner!