Cleaning your Catch

[GeorgeJ]

I'm going to be optimistic here and hope I catch fish big enough to eat this season, so l am watching youtube video and studying books on cleaning techniques. At the same time I an wondering how best to get rid of the remains, is it common practice to clean fish out on the water and discard remains into the water as food for other species? Otherwise what do you guys do? I want to put the remains to good use if possible.

[DRIFTER_016]

I will clean on the water when I can.

I will also clean on some newspaper on the kitchen counter. I don't have a garden to bury the entrails in so I wrap them up in the newspaper and throw in the trash.

[huey graphite]

If at home, I put the remains securely wrapped in the freezer until garbage night and then put them into the community provided "gree" bins that the city picks up for composting. Freezing keeps the garage and the neighbourhood from stinking.

[DRIFTER_016]

If at home, I put the remains securely wrapped in the freezer until garbage night and then put them into the community provided "gree" bins that the city picks up for composting. Freezing keeps the garage and the neighbourhood from stinking.

 

I don't have to worry about stinking up the place for 7 months of the year here in my frozen wasteland.

[misfish]

Dont waste good furtalizer.In the garden or flower bush it goes. Just add some garlic gloves and that will keep the vermits away.

[Joeytier]

Into the compost. Freezing it until the night before is a good idea. I'll definitely be trying that.

[GBW]

in the garage on newspaper. depening on the weather (winter/summer) I will toss it in the green bin as I don't have a garden and I don't want my dog to get it...

[Joey]

I usually clean on the kitchen counter and then put the remains in the green bins. I'd like to put them in the garden but worried about varmints. Maybe I'll take your advice Brian. Never thought of garlic before. I'll give it a try.

 

Joey

[Grimace]

Not sure what the wife does with em. B)

[danbouck]

I usually clean them on a piece of plywood on the back of my truck. Then drive the remains out to the bush for the coyotes.

[tinbanger]

Tim Hortons drive thru garbage can

TB

[irishfield]

Tim Hortons drive thru garbage can

TB

 

[Greencoachdog]

While on the water, you may want to only gut and scale your catch leaving the head and body intact!... this makes for much less hassle if you're checked by the MNR/DNR, especially if there is a slot limit!!! A slit around each gill and the a slit up the belly starting at the anal vent, the entrails and gills will come out in one gob if done properly, this can be dumped into the lake to return the nutrients!!! The fish also keep much better this way, just throw them on some ice... or make a brine solution with Rock Salt and ice if you have to keep them a couple of days in a cooler. This will super chill them and is the best preserving method I know of.

 

When you get home, behead them, fillet, and skin them! The heads, skins, and skeletal remain can be chopped up and then frozen (like mentioned in other posts), then taken to the lake on your next trip to be released back into the ecosystem to provide nutrients for other aquatic life! They also make a darn fine catfish chum!!!... just remember where you dumped them and come back whithin 1-7 days later with cut bait or catfish bait and fish the dump site!!! ... then you're ready to start the cycle all over again!

[ohhenrygsr]

Tim Hortons drive thru garbage can

TB

 

Dirty

[ozaibak1]

Hi it depends. If I am at a resort, I will use the fish cleaning station. I have cleaned fish by shore and tossed the remains in the water. I've also brought them home and clean them over newspapers or cardboard. Just depends on the situation.

[kickingfrog]

If you are really hungry

 

 

There is nothing to clean up.

[BITEME]

down east we used to clean mackeral on the causeway when we were kids the added bonus to this was eels big chunk a guts on a hook and you were eating makeral and eels for dinner mmmmm now unless im stopping on shore wait till i get back to base

[Bernie]

I toss em at the end of an walking dock and watch the osprey and the heron fight over them.

[Tug Boat]

if your in the country it is a good for your septic system. I flush some of mine down the john

[Fisherpete]

At the cottage, I will dump the remains in the swamp for the snapping turtles to munch on. At home, I clean fish on the kitchen counter (wife LOVES this), then put remains in a bag in the chest freezer until the morning that the green bin goes out. A few years back, when the green bin system first started, I cleaned a few pike and left the remains in the bin for a week in the summer heat... DEAR GOD that was the worst thing I haver ever had to clean up when the racoons managed to open that bin up!!! I have been freezing from that point on...

[Jer]

if your in the country it is a good for your septic system. I flush some of mine down the john

 

 

Not a good idea!

 

Anytime you are introducing 'extra' solid material to your septic tank, it is a bad thing. Just more solid waste to break down.

[bigugli]

I like to keep my fish fresh and alive til I get home. Clean them in the kitchen and green bucket for the waste. There were a few mornings in the summer and fall where the trash collector looked like he would be violently ill. A couple of collections go to the compost.

I don't put the scraps in the freezer. If you did that at a restaurant, the health board would shut you down. So how is it suddenly OK to do at home?

[tryz2fish]

When i clean the few fish that i catch the remains go straight in the freezer and come back out around june/july and then straight to the bear bait.

[Canuck2fan]

I am lucky I live in an apartment building, where my neighbor who sometimes goes fishing with me built a fish cleaning station in the laundry room. The other tenants think it is a laundry folding shelf but we know better. The shelf extends over the edge of the sink an inch or so, so cleaning the shelf is a breeze. Hot soapy water then bleach a quick rinse and it is good as new. When done with the cleaning everything goes into a garbage bag and into the bin outback. BTW the bin stinks so bad that the fish after a week or so kind of sweetens it up some. LOL

 

The funny thing is the only question I have EVER been asked by any other tenant who has caught me cleaning fish down there is if could I spare some fish because it looks so good LOL. I usually share too to keep the peace just in case.

Edited March 19, 2009 by Canuck2fan

[LeXXington]

Cleaning fish ahhh if I could only catch a few.

 

In the spring summer fall, I will clean anywhere..

 

In the winter only at home, the wife loves it.