How do charters keep there fish all day? Surely they are not buying 10 bags of ice for 20 blokes fish each trip?
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How do charters keep there fish all day? Surely they are not buying 10 bags of ice for 20 blokes fish each trip?
Sent from my SM-G900I using Ausfish mobile app
I've caught fish in large quantities for a living, so have an insight into what works best. These methods are still used today by our scalefish fleet. Nothing beats slurry, period, for chilling down quickly and keeping good for days on end. Our fish would sometimes be five days old when they went on the truck, as you were usually out for 2-3 days unless you cracked it and filled up ( in our case, around 1.5 tonne) overnight.But then you had to wait a few days foir the truck anyway. Quality was excellent. Fish were largely pink snapper, with the usual smattering of red emperor, red throat, Wa dhufish, baldchin, etc, and sometimes, big spaniards.
Ice was kept bagged until needed, then tipped into an insulated box with sea water to the right consistency. The fish were not bled. It is believed that the cutting of the gill membrane or latch just allows bacteria to proliferate. The fish were iki-jimi'ed (spiked) then straight into the slurry. And would stay there until they were unpacked on the jetty, to be repacked into 40 litre tubs, graded by size and species, with ice added to the tub,into the refrigerated transport for the 600k run to market. Once a fish has been in a slurry for several hours, you can cut it anywhere and it will not bleed. As to temperatures, this was a winter occupation for me, but at 27 deg S, winter isnt cold, and the water is still around 24 degrees where we fished. Those who work through summer use exactly the same methods. People experimented with added ice to the slurry mix to bring temps down even more, but it was found that it tended to give "white eye", where the fishes eyes started to freeze--when the fish warmed a little, the eye would collapse, giving it a stale look. So that was largely discontinued.
Slurry is still definitely my favorite, but ice boxes above deck are a pita, IMO, so I tend just to go with ice under the deck, as mentioned in my previous post. That underfloor storage is not completely sealed, with a gap around the top, so I don't use slurry. The deck section over it is removeable, so I should just get keen, lift it up, and seal the gap. If using the big Madfish bag, I still use the slurry.
When we do our long ( around a month) Ningaloo trip each year, I have to use frozen bottles. This is completely remote and self-sufficient camping. I have a lot of solar power, so I use it to keep six or seven milk bottles/2 litre drink bottles/whatever. These go in the fish bag under the deck. We don't tend to kill a lot of fish up there, but we can keep, say, a big wahoo, and a couple of good demersals in there OK. Or a bag limit of goldband, red emperor , rankins, etc. it is definitely not as good as slurry, just no comparison, but it is all we can do.
Block ice will definitely outlast crushed, if you want the longevity, but will not pack around fish as well. And fibreglass murders any of the plastic moulded boxes, don't care who makes them. The mackerel-type boxes are the go, as Nagg points out, as you can fit a long fish in them, or short, but you cant put a mackerel in a short box. Although the big Madfish bag is about 1.7 m long, so it does the same job.
they wouldn't be paying servo prices for their ice, or they are making their own. it's lot cheaper through a fish buyer, in 15 or 20kg bags.Originally Posted by gazza2006au
Didnt even think of that
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Not a huge fan of skinning .snapper, I prefer to have the crispy skin, also not a fan of how he breaks the flesh up trying to bend it to cut over the bones, then sticks his thumb into prime flesh, people are talking about bleeding and icing in minutes to obtain premium eating quality, why bother if you're not taking care when filleting?
I think it was more of a demonstration than anything else -
One thing mentioned that I've in more recent times started to avoid was the use of fresh water when cleaning fish ….. particularly if filleting - without a doubt the flavour of the fillets is improved .
Chris
Give a man a fish & he will eat for a day !
Teach him how to fish
& he will sit in a boat - & drink beer all day!
TEAM MOJIKO
Yep, I tend to agree, down here, it's not as hot as up North, so, keeping fish is not much of an issue, I still look after any fish kept for the table of course, but some home made ice, or a bag from the servo is plenty, if expecting a full day on the water, more ice would be taken, and either a long esky, or a bag is used for long fish.
I think some of you fellas must have super taste buds...I have tried different methods over the last 15 yrs of FNQ reef fishing...
Now for reef trips I just brain spike and chuck all dermersals in the icebox with Ice blocks, ice bottles and when I do a count I add some crushed ice between layers...
I've been out linefishing with a couple of pro's and now also believe that for 2 or 3 days trips the less you cut the fish the less chance of bacteria causing issues...
I can see the difference of bled fish and not bled when processing (fillet, bone and skin) but I cant taste any difference...so why bother.....its mostly in the species and the cooking IMO...
Noel, I find the important thing when filleting and skinning is that they have been chilled well enough for the flesh to be firm..if its soft and squishy then you will likely end up with fingermarks and falling apart flesh that was probably never chilled properly initially...
Inshore day trips for Mackies we will cut the throats..
I never fillet fish unless it is "firm" sometimes I leave them over night in the fridge if they are too fresh when I get home, I also never bleed quality fish, like Snapper, there may be a slight difference in appearance (maybe) but taste is the same to me.
Another for the no bleed on demersals,simple spike behind the eye,the right spot has the eye do a bit of a dance and the fish goes perfectly limp,then into Ice/seawater slurry.Sometimes if it's summer or I'm in CQ I will dose the raw ice with a handful of salt before leaving home.
Agree with all the above. and haven't washed fillets for 20 yrs now--just be careful when handling, wipe off any blood. The old "chuck the fillets in a bucket of saltwater" is just a shocker for everything from taste to longevity of storaage.
Obviously this won’t work for bigger fish but estuary species I just use to keep them in the live well alive until I got home
My live wells were 60-100l insulated with 50-100mm if foam and had a recirculating system with aeration as well as the constant fresh water recirculating system
Kids and neighbours kids use to love comming over when I got home to see what I’d caught
Fish were as lively as when they went in and was quickly banned by the missus from killing them on the kitchen sink
As soon as you kill a fish like anything alive they start to break down
left uncovered or being washed in sea temp sea water is just nuts for all the effort to go catch them
My plate boat has one aft of midship fuel tank. Has a drain through transom with gate valve. Intended for bleeding fish prior to icing down. It can be flooded by opening gate valve and emptied by opening valve and planing away.
I am actually tinkering with the idea of putting one in my boat now as my floor has not gone down yet, i see the extruded polystyrene mostly comes in 50mm thick that is to thick for between my stringers what is the ideal thickness u guys are using 20mm, 25mm? if i could get away with say 15mm that would be a ripper i would have a huge long tank
but mine will be more of a drainable esky/ice slurry tank
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