Caught 4 small walleye (16"-17") this morning on Erie.  My usual routine is to keep them alive in the livewell until we're done fishing.  Before heading back to the marina, I "bleed" them.  After loading the boat, I will immediately dump ice on them, then make the 1.5 hour drive home.  While cleaning, and eating them, the meat on these 4 fish was very soft/mushy.  The larger fish (23"-25") we caught last week were very firm. 
 
I'm not accustomed to catching walleyes this small on Erie.  Are the mushy fillets due to the young age?  The only difference in my routine today was instead of cleaning immediately, the fish sat in my fridge for two hours.  I wouldn't think this softened the meat.
 
Any thoughts?
 
 

i found out keeping on ice after bleeding helps.
 

Ya we gill em instantly. Clip em and put em in the live well, or death well however you wanna look at it. Soon as they die, which is about 10 to 15mins, they go on the ice. We've never had a problem. I know someone that gills them and hangs em on a stringer over the side. With that water running over those gills, they clean out a little quicker.

We are in FLA right now for family vacation. Soon as we get home, I'm heading Northward for the first trip of the season. I hope the lake cooperates.

From what I have read fish in live wells/stringers will get stressed out and start producing the amino acids or whatever it is that gives an undesirable effect on their flesh. Best is to kill and bleed immediately. Then put into a slurry of ice and water.

We fished this past weekend out of Walnut,  they went from the net straight into a cooler with ice. No clipping of gills or anything. They tasted great. 

https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/6/27/18744387/right-way-kill-fish-ikejime

psu_fish
We fished this past weekend out of Walnut,  they went from the net straight into a cooler with ice. No clipping of gills or anything. They tasted great. 

You stay in close?

Thanks for the tips.  Interesting video Pork. 
 
I only have a 16 footer, so I've avoided bringing a large cooler to ice them immediately.  Just seemed strange I've never had this issue before.  They were very soft while filleting, and literally mush after cooking.    While I had mentioned I put them in the fridge for two hours before cleaning, I didn't mention they were in a plastic bag.  Another factor?  Won't do that again.
 
With that said, It sounds like bleeding and/or icing immediately gives the best results.  I'll look at my options. 
 
Last three weekends, we caught them in the 25 ft range.  Not a lot of eyes shallow, just enough to keep it interesting when you throw in the smallies and sheep.
 
 

I’ve had mushy fish at the beach before and definitely from getting warm. Possibly from not killing and bleeding. I personally have just started that ikejime thing. I usually did what psu did with most fish. Walleye and crappie don’t have huge bloodlines so have always come out just fine on ice. The ocean fish that have gotten soft on me, have a bit more bloodline. I started bleeding fish maybe 5 years ago and always having ice in some form. Often on the beach it is a cooler bag with ice packs (frozen water bottles). On my boat, either ice with water or a bunch of ice packs and water. I have yet to have a mushy since then. On the boat, I do the same as Pens and make my live well a death well. I do a kill shot to the brain, then clip the gills. They bleed out pretty well. I’ve heard that they pump more without the brain shot, but I haven’t noticed the difference. I’d rather kill then quick. Nerves will have them flop for a minute or two, then rinse out my well and toss in the cooler. For crappie and perch, I don’t bleed, but give them a kill shot. I hate when I go to clean them 6-7 hours after catching and most are still alive. Regardless if they feel pain or don’t, I’d rather put down as soon as I know I am keeping. OL’ Yeller!!!

We always just put them on ice right away......never bled them, and they always turned out fine.  Have friends that do the bleeding method and I think it does improve the quality of the fillets, esp. on the larger fish (6+ lbers), but to me, it wasn't enough of an improvement for the mess and effort it took on our boat.  Never trusted the stringer/clip over the side so we had to do upside down in a 5 gallon bucket, and with 3 or 4 6+ lbers (back when you needed huge coolers for the haul) in there...sloshing around....that mess would get into the bilge on rougher days...no thanks.  After 2 trips, we went back to the old way and were fine with it. 
With the overall "smaller" fish that are up there these days, I am not sure it is really worth the effort but if you have the set-up to do it, why not.