Had a buddy that swore by that, did it all the time. He said that's how the old timers do it.....
I fish a pile of deads and never got comfortable with it. Just doesn't make sense. Sure they're "dead" and there's not a chance in 4377 that we would eat them but that doesn't mean smelling dead fishy and smelling rotten is the same. When real fish die they're under the water (really, really cold nearly frozen water) and never get exposed to air (full of oxygen and bacteria to promote rotting. In fact a dead fish under water will "keep" for a long time without breaking down very much at all.
Now I DO believe in thawing them
somewhat before fishing. Frozen bait defrosts pretty slowly in icy water and if they're frozen there's not much scent that disperses. Remember smelling fishy is different than smelling rotten
.
In WI we can no longer legally use bait that is preserved by refrigeration or freezing alone due to VHS reasons. Toward that end I have been curing my deads in dry salt and then storing them in a super saturated brine. The first year I did this I caught more fish than I ever had and even if WI says I can go back to freezing alone I probably won't. Other pluses are: the bait
never freezes which means it's always ready to fish, they're tougher so they don't break apart so easily, if I forget and leave 'em somewhere warm they don't mush out and get stinkier than they already are. Lot of reasons.....
This is a big place and I'm sure there will be differing opinions. This is just mine, UMMV.......