I have always tried to keep fish alive right up to the fillet knife.It gets harder as weather gets hotter.I see people take fish straight out the water and throw them right on ice mostly on salt water. Does anyone do this with their catch bass,crappie etc. I never liked to fillet dead fish myself.

have a live well on pontoon and ice box on trophy.never had any problems doing either.

I too try to keep them alive as long as possible. If they are iced for too long, they become stiff and harder to clean. I usually keep water fresh, cool and aerated while on the water. Then I'll plug the livewell to keep water in it and drop a bag of ice in there on the way home.

I like to keep them alive until I get back to our place on the lake. Take them out of the livewell immediately and put them on ice. In my opinion, if you are for sure going to dress the fish, I would put them on ice immediately in a cooler. To me, the cold fish are easier to fillet than live, warm fish. These are bass and I'm using an electric knife (as I'm sure y'all are).
Other people around here, that do it this way, find it way easier than filleting live fish.
And it always happens that when you get one side finished and turn the fish over, the fish flops and the skin from the filleted side slaps you across the face. (lol)

If I am keeping them they go on ice ASAP this time of year.

We have a 2X3X2 basket that we keep them in on our pond. It hangs off the Dock usually just under the water, but when its hot I'll sink it to the bottom. Never had a problem with them dieing and have kept a couple of dozen bream in it for a couple of days with no problem. Clean them all at once at the end of the weekend, or let them go if I run out of time.

Same as Gotcha1, cold fish fillet much easier with less waste. I let bass & crappie sit in my basement fridge overnight before filleting.