Transporting fish/waiting to fillet

Jigaman

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I make a few trips each winter to Lake Winnipeg and I usually only keep fish to bring home on the last day of fishing since I dont have a good place to clean them up there and I also dont want to be hassled at the border. Sure enough, we'll catch nice eaters the whole trip and throw them back and then on the last day they are hard to come by. My last trip we fished two days and I kept a few from the first day and bleed them and also gutted them. I packed snow in the bucket so they wouldn't freeze and when I got home I cleaned them with the ones I caught that day and the meat seemed fine and tasted the same. Anyone else do something similar or have a better method? It felt weird doing this as I always like to clean fish asap.
 


TFX 186

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Jig,
I've dumped the water in my livewell and added bags of ice. Cleaned them later that evening when I got home. I've also thrown them in a cooler and done the same. Fish seamed to be fine. Didn't notice anything different. You gutted them and I didn't. so should be even better. I also had buddies do it the way I did so seams to be ok. As long as they tasted good and you got enough fillets to eat. Thumbs Up

Fish On!
 

Allen

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That is a fairly similar process to what many commercially caught fish undergo.

Catch, gut and ice on day one.

Store chilled (maybe even frozen) until sold. This could be up to a week to ten days.

Buyer finishes filleting the fish after it is bought at the store.



While I would not necessarily want to be cleaning and eating a fish that was caught a week earlier, it is actually quite common. Note, the above is what we did with carp, buffalo, catfish, goldeye, drum, and any other non-game species back when I was a teenager working for a commercial fishery here in ND. We sent out a semi-load a couple times a week and I'd have to imagine many of those fish didn't get the knife until some 10 days after we caught them, gutted them, covered in ice, and stored in a freezer. I'd note that it was actually rare to see a fish frozen in our shipments, but they were kept on ice.

Anyway, that's my 2 centavos worth.
 

guywhofishes

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I clean fish the next morning probably more often than not. They're cold, stiff, filet easier and are just as fresh as getting the knife the moment they're caught.

The filet doesn't know if it's still on the bone or not. They're pretty stupid.
 


Jigaman

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This is what I thought and am glad to hear others have done it as well and are alive to talk about it!
 

sl1000794

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My $.02.

Fish that are caught and cared for (chilled, cleaned the same day) are going to taste great if eaten in a couple of days. We bled, gutted and gilled all salt water fish we caught off California. I would bet that tuna have twice as much blood per pound than any fresh water fish. They do not have white flesh. Nuf said.

Bleeding, gutting, gilling and cooling fresh water fish when they are caught are going to extend their shelf date until needing freezing date more than making them taste better when consumed within a day or two of being caught. I would bleed, gut, gill and chill any fish that I planned to freeze. They will taste better if you do.
 

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