Quick Question WSB Icing or Fielting
 

Would like to know ASAP :)

...Know what?

I would ice that beast for at least 24 hours before sticking the knife in her.

If that's the question?

I bleed, then ice it. I gut then fillet at home.then freeze it

What is best, is there a preference?

I have been told both and need to know like now ...

Yes, this is the question. I did gut him and he if fully iced now.

I may cut off a small chunk for dinner tho ...

But your saying to wait 24 hrs for the bulk of the fish, correct?

Ideally 24 hours yes.... try not to get any frresh water on your fillets....
fresh water bad!
:wsb:

Thank you very much,

So I should NOT cut off a small chunk for tonight because I do not want to expose the remainder to the ice /turning to water.

Should I salt the gut cavity as it did gut it or no need as that really isn't exposed meat.

i always use freshwater with lemon juice then straight to the BBQ if i am going to eat it on the spot. I also use freshwater to rinse off all the scales when i am cleaning it. Am i doing it the wrong way? :confused:

We bleed them right away while they're still kicking, and bring a large cooler with eight 2-litre frozen water bottles (the large soda types). Then the fish goes right into the cooler when we hit the beach, and when we get home we gut 'em ASAP, then throw a couple more 2-litre frozen in, along with a large bad of crushed ice. We wait a day, then filet it, keeping the filets cool in another smaller cooler with a couple more frozen bottles. When we're done fileting, we vacuum pack ASAP, except what we're eating that night. If done this way, your vacuum sealed fish will last up to 2 years or more, just about as fresh as the day you caught them. We do this with all of our fish, yellowtail, halibut, tuna, etc.
We have a huge chest freezer at home, full of clams, lobsters, and the different fish species, plus a bag of crushed ice ready to use, and at least 12 frozen 2-litre bottles in it, at any given time. The crushed ice comes in handy because it comes in direct contact with the length of the fish, while the bottles keep it very chilled. Waiting a day to filet firms up the meat, making it so much easier to filet.
You'll save mucho dollars using the frozen bottle idea. One note, when filling the bottles leave about 2" of air at the top, then squeeze out the air and put the cap on. Ice expands when freezing, and you don't need the bottles bursting in your freezer.

X2


BS without photos of so claimed fish,on a scale next to a tape, with GPS#'s, time caught, depth, Bait, hook,line, rod and reel combo,gaff, game clip, and kayak. :D

Congrats.

A&J, thank you very much, I really appreciate the info.

This is my first WSB and PB on a kayak which I have been doing for about one year now.

I will post photos on another thread.

I checked out the other wsb thread and my fish is a lot smaller at 37" but it is my first so I am psyched.

I was the one who told you to ice it while we were on the water.

What's the matter you don't trust me?

I trust you because your Next door to the guy who lives next door to my ex! and you are going to catch the Loch Ness monster before the summer is over!

wth... my fish never last that long....

This is how it goes...


Babe, I CAUGHT A BIG ONE. i caught a huge one !!!

Bring it home in ice and a cooler...

take off scales, gut it... dunk in water with lemon to BBQ grill
BAm.. people show up... even the ones you dont know and your left with just a ziplock bag at the end.

Yes, and I thank you for that. Sorry dude, (I actually did trust you) I just like confirmation on important things.

Congrats on your PB, I would have asked alot of questions too, don't wanna
mess that fish up...enjoy

if you're gonna eat it right away then that is fine.

washing off the slime and stuff (before making any cuts into the fish) is a good idea... I do this too.

But if you're gonna freeze it or leave it in the fridge for a while make sure you don't hit the fillets with ANY fresh water... it will make it last a lot longer in the fridge, and taste better frozen....

I rinse the fish to get all the slime off. Fillet the fish. Skin the fish. Then take paper towels and dry before vac seal

Awesome fish report!!

This is great info, I did not know that...thanks :grouphug:

Ditto here, with rinsing slime, sand and blood off, in addition to using paper towels.
We also take about a 1/4 inch of a paper towel that is as wide as your bag opening is, roll it up, stick in the bag opening all the way across the bag and about 1/2 inch behind where the seal will occur, to ensure catching any additional juices before they get into the sealing mechanism, potentially ruining your fish sealer. Doesn't matter if your sealer has a wet/dry selection, if the juices get past the bag opening they will end up in the trough, or worse. This is an absolute must with the Pismo clams we freeze.

I don't have a ice chest big enough for a nice wsb or yt. So I ice in the car on the way home and fillet right when I get there. Deffinately wipe slime off the fish befor cutting and clean board of any gut contents befor continueing to fillet. I don't tend to use plastic bags. Enstead I lay out a big cookie sheet, line it with wax paper and then a thick layer of paper towells. Then add layers of fish and paper towells followed by a cover of seran wrap. I like to change the paper towells daily. In my house there is a sorta under ground "mike has fish" comunication network through the family so fish never makes it to the freezer. Mike

You guys just cost me 175 bucks, thanks ........ lol

Ten dollars on ice and 165 bucks for a vacuum sealer and extra bags .....

Do you know how fast ice melts in Lakeside when it's 100 degrees .... I finally gave up and brought the fish (on ice) into the man cave with Air Conditioning .....

LOL:)
The vacuum sealer is one of the best fishing expenses you'll ever do.
The ice is nice, just to be safe for when needed. Water in 2-litre bottles, then frozen, will save you from buying ice that often.

wsb fillets are any where from $16.00 - $20.00 a pound,
looks like you saved some money to me! :D

http://www.giovannisfishmarket.com/f...te-FILLET.aspx

Before I had a vac sealer I used ziplocs and a big bowl of water. Zip most of teh way, submerge most of teh way with the zipper part out of the water and manipulate the fish until mosy of the bubbles are out.

I have also had success by wrapping tightly in plastic wrap and then putting in a ziplock, excluding as much air as possible.

That said, I still prefer the vac sealer.

Well here it goes ....... ready to insert the knife ....

I like to cook and my small family doesn't like big portions so I will make a few different smaller portions .....

Grilled WSB for lunch ( maybe with the orange sauce)

The scraps and head will be for fish soup tonight

Will start the cevich cooking process with lime and add the salsa light tonight / early am

Tomorrows night dinner will be fish sandwich or fish tacos, whatever the daughter decides ....

I can't wait to taste all 4

And the rest goes in the freezer ....

Great topic on discussion!!
 

It looks like I'm doing it all wrong after reading this post.

I've been ocean fishing for about a month and saltwater fish food prep is new to me. I've kept 2 yellowtails for the dinner table in the last few weeks. Everything is already eaten and it tasted great. Please correct me if I'm prepping wrong. I would like to get the best tasting fish possible. It looks I have to add more money to the money pit to eat ocean fish.

Here is what I do(same process used with freshwater fishing):

1. Catch and bleed out on the kayak
2. Typically and catch more for 1 to 4 hours
3. Take fish home in a plastic garbage bag (10 minutes from LJ)
4. Immediately fillet and cut into steaks
5. Rinse steaks with freshwater
6. Set aside 5 or 6 steaks to eat that day or over the next 2 days.
6.1 I place these steaks in a ziplock in a bowl surrounded by ice
7. Freeze the rest in freezer zip locks filled with freshwater
8. Eat all frozen fish within a month

Is icing absolutely nescessary if you live close to the ocean?

I have a nice vacuum pack machine, but I almost always use the method that yakrider turned me onto a few years ago:

The original bags are hard find now but I can use my electric pump with an adapter and then use the Ziploc bags which are easy to find any where

Here is a video showing the Reynolds pump / adapter and the Ziploc bags:
http://www.reynloc.com/
Works freaking great

The electric pump is from the Reynolds system
The bags are from the Ziploc system
The Ziploc pump is a hand pump that also works well, but the electric pump is faster and easier

I made my own adapter.

It may not be totally necessary for everyone, as in your case.

But, we've had seasons where we caught 4 WSB in one day, totally about 175 lbs of whole fish. Same season, 3 weeks apart, we each caught her 1st Thresher and my 1st Thresher, 85 lbs and 80 lbs respectively. None of those fish would even fit into the cooler, so we stacked them together into the back of the truck with 8 frozen 2-litre bottles around them, wet towels below and on top of the pile, which are shaded by the kayaks directly above (not on) them.

We also took the care of keeping an old bath towel on them, keeping the towel wet the whole time we were still OTW. We always bring large towels for this purpose.

We live a half hour away from the launch, not 10 minutes.

For the care we take, we still have well over half of those fish left, from 2 years ago, and everytime we pull some out it taste like fresh fish. We also have Bluefin, Yellowtail, Halibut, Clams and Lobster in large supply. We eat a lot of fish, clams, crabs, and lobster, but seems we can never catch up, it's a good thing.

We've done the ziploc method, works okay, for short durations, but for usually less than a year, at best, IMHO.

All the fish we've kept, Thresher, WSB, Halibut, and even Yellowtail, all go for over $7 a pound, so we take the best care possible. The bounty of La Jolla is far too valuable in many ways, and we certainly don't want to waste anything we keep.

Thanks for all the tips, the fillets came out perfect.