Last night while rummaging around out back, I came across one of my eel coolers that I had been looking for and forgot about ... forgot about is the key word as I mistakenly put the cooler out back after a night of fishing close to three weeks ago and forgot about it until last night ... three weeks of dead eels in a closed cooler ... what a rancid smell ... not sure I want to even keep the thing, it's so toxic right now ... :yak4:

It reminded me of a time when I was in high school when my buddy was away and another friend and I decided to "borrow" his 13-foot whaler to do some live bait fishing with pogies ... we plugged the little well between the two transoms and used it as our live bait tank ... came back very late at night ...

... a few weeks later I went water skiing with my buddy who owned the boat ... as we swam out to the mooring you could smell the decayed bunker in the back ... my other buddy and I returned so late that we forgot about the remaining pogies in the well. The water was black and the fish decayed ... by friend who owned the boat reached in to pick the bait up and they slipped through his fingers ... it was a most awful smell, he was furious:af: ... he also was a big guy ...not quite as big as Big Fish Larry, but not much smaller either ... I was too scared to say anything or laugh, becuase he would have killed me ...

... moral is get rid of your bait when it still smells okay ...

... anything like this happen to you guys?

I haven't done it.....But I had a friend of mine leave some eels in the back of my truck once that I didn't know were there. :hihi:

I haven't done it.....But I had a friend of mine leave some eels in the back of my truck once that I didn't know were there. :hihi:


uhmm ... do I know this friend, do you and I and he fish together often?

My brother had put a cooler full of live lobsters (on ice) in the trunk of his El Camino, and the cooler got knocked open and one of the bugs crawled up under the wheel well. They couldn't get it out, and they couldn't get the smell out either after a couple of hot summer days.:laughs::laughs::laughs:

I left a flat of herring in the livewell of my boat a couple years ago. Used the livewell as a storage box. It spent about a week in there. The flies, yellowjackets and maggots were everywhere. I put it in a trash can outside the shed. Its still sittin there, never been opened since.

Squid:yak6:

Yes Squid in freezer my ICE CUBES smelt had to get Arm & Hammer to the rescue , the nasty Squid found their way into a mailbox of a person who did wrong to my family , I like starting work @1AM
Link Sr

Theres like a 2 week old pogie kickin around in the back of my truck, it keeps people away:jester:

Dead eels in my van. lol. The wife wasn't very happy.:tooth:

Squid:yak6:
Ditto.....

I never use squid either but for some strange reason I had to get some......so when I unpacked from the trip and put the cooler on the front steps (which we never use) and after two weeks in the hot sun I was in the BACK of the house saying "what IS that horrific smell"???? yes, through the bag, through the cooler and all the way on the other side of the house I smelt it. well when I found it it wasnt pretty.....That is all I can say and now I need to stop because the mere thought is triggering my gag reflex

I have a problem with trying to save sea worms to use next trip, I have had to throw away many coolers, I usually just take the whole cooler and dump it in the trash with bait in it.

once I had a 1/2 flat of herring left over. I can't keep bait in the house so I plugged in my camper and put the frige on, my son being the do gooder that he was saw it and unplugged it. well 2 weeks later I went in the camper to clean it up and I was meet with the worst smell. I ended up having to rip the frige out and installed a new one.

do my big brothers smelly socks count?

One of the first times that Mikey and I went real fishing together, we headed out to Nauset (with some girls, we mainly went to drink...although I remember that Mikey had a good pickup), we went in my 86 Mercury Linx, with some eels and sand eels. Put the bait in the trunk, drove to the beach, and fished.
It only rained at the Cape 2 times that summer, so I don't think I got into my car from the middle of July until late August (used to take the bike everywhere), and when I got into the car six weeks later...after a really hot summer...UUGGH!
An eel had gotten out of the eel bucket and sat in the heat for six weeks...no open windows, nothing.
It was truly a horrific experience!

cooler filled with macks. 2months. never really forgot about them. we were gonna use them the next day. never happened. so then we were gonna empty them into the water the next day. never happened. it got to the point where we were to afraid to open it. so it just sat. and sat. till one day we needed it. we had to strap it to the roof. stunk up the whole town. where we ended up emptying happened to be quite filled with people fishing that day. and the only place semi-far away from everyone was up wind. oh the looks on peoples faces when that smell made its way over. it was horrible. kudos to tom for being able to dump it. i couldn't get with in 5 ft with out almost throwing up. there was nothing left of the dozen or so macks that were in there. it was nothing but a yellowish gooey maggots rinse. horrible. :yak4:

Left a live eel in a friends car one night about 15 years ago. Wasn't planning it, but saw him parked at a bar after saying he couldn't fish because he was working late. Unfortunately for him, he left his window open. I forgot about it until I ran into him a few days later when I saw his bike parked at the same bar. He said he couldn't drive because the car smelled too bad but he didn't know why. The eel had gone under the drivers seat and got under the carpet and died. He never figured out who did it and to this day still thinks it was someone else.

At the previous SWE we had a freezer failure. It was a vertical freezer, thankfully, not horizontal.

It was a potent mix of squid, a saved for sharking bluefin carcass, bunker, and dead eels.

The freezer was well sealed and minimally used so it took a while to detect that something was wrong. And it was very, VERY wrong. Not sure how long it had been cooking for but there was a yellow slurry with barely indentifiable bits from the various creatures that were in there.

Now I grew up working on a farm, so less then desirable smells don't phase me as much as others but even I was impressed and it remains a benchmark in foulness. Everyone else was instantly dry heaving and running outside. It was comedy...

Took a lot of Ozium and time to knock the smell out of there.

, I like starting work @1AM
Link Sr

I heard the trucks starting when I was awoken that morning before 2am, couldn't get back to sleep until 20 min. before the alarm went off at 5:40am :wall: take the work when you can I guess.


as far as bait goes, only one instance I can think of, left some eels in my eelbag in a bucket thinking I'd use them next night, afetr a few days I didn't want to deal with it, nasty, just bagged and douldbagged the whole thing and in the trash for SEMASS to deal with:yak5:

My buddy tossed some frozen herring in the woods by his house, bad move, his dog got loose a day or so later and rolled in the crap, they were my herring so he bitched at me :biglaugh:

Had the 3rd row out in my Expedition. An eel escaped and died in one of the slots the seat slides into. I found it with 100's of maggots. I had to shop vac it. I thought they were gone but it seemed they multiplied and were under the carpet near the slot. 3 shop vac's later and a bunch of car spray I finally got them all. The 2nd and 3rd vac was the next day. Made me want to puke. My skin is crawling as I'm typing. Oh yeah I left bait in a girlfriend of mines car 10 years ago and she still brings it up. She was pissing about it last week to be exact.

Was an observer on a Crab boat in Alaska, and the captain had a small freezer room which was converted into a mini hot room complete with heat lamps, One of the other captains gave him the idea that rancid squid were part of the his miracle bait one season, so imagaine a bunch of flats of squid cooking in this room, I made the unfortunate mistake of asking about the room, and then opening the small hatch.... I think you know what happened next:yak6: