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Cleaning your Catch


GeorgeJ

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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.

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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. Wink-Smiley-male-happy-smiley-smile.gif

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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

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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!!! :thumbsup_anim::Gonefishing: ... then you're ready to start the cycle all over again!

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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.

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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

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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...

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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.

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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?

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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 by Canuck2fan
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