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Thread: Fish cleaning tips?

  1. #41
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    My Dad taught me as a wee lad and this is the way I'm in the process of teaching my son. He's only 8 so I can't just let him wield my filet knife.

    If I catch a big bait of fish that's going to the freezer I do this. I keep a VERY sharp filet knife and I take the point straight thru the brain or as close as I can get. I have a slab of 2X10 and I take a 16p nail and secure thru the head to the board. Take my filet knife as close to the gills as possible and go straight down to the spine and turn my knife toward the tail. I leave a piece of skin and don't cut it free from the tail just yet. Flop that slab back into place and turn the fish over. This time I separate the slab from the carcass. Then flip over and separate the slab on the other side.

    This should give you two slabs. Take your filet knife and carefully slice the meat away from the outer skin. I then take my knife and curve it just under the rib cage that's in your slab. Should leave you with two good slabs.

    I usually clean quite a few at a time and I keep a bowl of water to put each fresh slab in. I clean and rinse my slabs and put them in freezer bags and fill them with fresh clean water and then freeze. Keeps air and freezer burn a non issue.


  2. #42

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    When I'm fishing for bluefish, and catch one, the first thing I do is konk it so it doesn't bite my fingers off then bleed it immediately. That is one fish that tastes horrible metallic if you don't bleed out the flesh with its heart still going.

    I used to gut then fillet blues and lake fish. Now I just fillet. It's easier with the head attached and you don't have ribs flapping in the breeze.

    Striper on the other hand, by law has to come off the beach with its head still attached. Sometimes the walk is long down the sandbar so cutting the gills and guts out lightens the load by 5 or so pounds. Makes em a little tougher to fillet though.

    As for survival, the trick is to keep them in the water. Don't drag a striper up onto the sand until you know for sure it is legal. Don't haul it out and get your picture taken with it if you aren't going to eat it. Get your feet wet, keep it upright and get the hook out quick. If the hook is in the gorge, cut the line and leave it. BTW, don't use Galvanized hooks. Regular steel rusts away eventually.

    The other thing is to use circle hooks. You may lose a few fish but the hooks are designed to come back up out of the gorge and catch the lip, in theory. The catching the lip part is a little iffy. I use them when I'm specifically looking for striper because of the size limitations.

    I also decide what I'm fishing for when going for tackle. For blues I use a huge hook, 8/0xx or bigger, and a 50lbtest steel leader. If you don't know blues, think really sharp teeth and snap at anything that looks like food. No self-respecting striper would touch such an obvious tackle. Stripers are shy fish and will mouth the bait before taking it away. A much smaller hook, 6/0x or so circle hook and a monofilament leader will usually fool them. Of course, a blue taking that hook will have chewed through the mono before you even get to your rod.
    Last edited by LowKey; 07-09-2010 at 09:58 PM.

  3. #43
    Senior Member Aurelius95's Avatar
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    First of all, I applaud the original post(er) back on page 1. If you don't know how to do something, ask. When I got into trout fishing a few years back, I had never cleaned a trout. I looked it up on Youtube, and there were plenty of examples. By the way, cleaning a trout is EASY! I even leave the heads on.

    A very easy way to cook a trout after it's cleaned is to run a stick through the eye to tail, put some salt pepper in the ribcage, and then angle the stick into the ground, near the open fire, so your trout is sticking up at an angle. Give it 10-15 minutes, peel back the skin, and enjoy.
    Not all who wander are lost - Tolkien

  4. #44

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    Why do people always have to put "Enjoy" at the end of a recipe?
    Almost sounds like an order.
    <where is that pet peeve thread?>

  5. #45
    Super Moderator crashdive123's Avatar
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