Growing up I had the benefit of spending a lot of time with my maternal grandparents. Both were hearty, thrifty folks who were known to create their own solutions to common problems. It’s one of the things I treasured the most about them. My grandfather was a great outdoorsman who loved to go hunting and fishing. Grandma was in charge of cleaning, butchering and cooking whatever he’d catch. Over the years she came up with quite a few crafty solutions to make her job easier. One of them was a homemade, portable, fish cleaning station. It was effective, inexpensive and easy to make. Here’s how you can make one of your own:
Materials List
In order to complete this project you will need a wooden cutting board, a teeth clip, some wood screws and a screw driver. You’ll also need a pocket style waist apron, grip-it shelf liner, a glue gun, Velcro tabs and a few shower hooks.
Estimated Costs
The teeth clips are available through office supply stores and you can typically pick one up for less than $5. Grip-It shelf liner is usually available at discount and department stores for less than $3 a roll. A pocket style waist apron can generally be purchased at a craft store, kitchen store or a restaurant supply store for less than $4. The cutting board will run you around $10 and is available from the same types of stores. Shower hooks will cost you anywhere from $1 to $5 depending on the retailer.
Building the Fish Cleaning Station
Start by placing the board face down. Measure and cut a piece of grip-it shelf liner that is the exact width and length of the cutting board. Glue the liner to the back for the cutting board and let it dry. The liner will keep your cutting board from sliding around when you are using it.
Flip the cutting board face up and continue by placing the teeth clip at the top of the board. You’ll want to center the teeth clip and then screw it into place. Grandma would place the fish’s tail under the teeth clip during cleaning and it would help to hold the fish into place.
Now that your cleaning board is done, you can start work on the apron. Depending on the type of apron, you may need to do a little cutting and sewing to attach the shower hooks. The shower hooks and Velcro tabs are designed to hold your hand towels and snap-on knife sheaths. The pockets of your apron are there to store whatever other fish cleaning supplies you’ll want to carry on your person. When you want to store your fish cleaning station, you can use the apron strings to tie it to the cutting board. That’s all there is to it.
Killeen Gonzalez enjoys fishing with her family and has traveled extensively.
More from this contributor:
Top 5 Legendary Fishermen
Top 5 Baits for Winter Bass Fishing
Top 5 Techniques for Fishing in the Weeds
Top 5 Fishing Inventions that Revolutionized the Sport