Prior to ice fishing I'd like to learn how to clean partially frozen fish???

[sconceptor]

Prior to ice fishing, I'd like to learn how to clean a partially frozen white fish. Last time on Simcoe, we kept 2 whities that froze at our hut and partially defrosted on the 3hours back home. They were super soft and difficult to clean and the fleshed seemed way too mushy.

 

Do you clean them frozen, when at the hut or back at your vehicle? Do you defrost the smelly things totally when you get home? Wow do they stink.. worse than a musky.....but they taste pretty dam good!!!!

 

Any issues with perch?

 

Any tips prior to the fun beginning would be appreciated!

[BassAsin]

been a long time since i cleaned a whitie but as for the perch and the wallies i clean them wheni get home i just leave them in the box of the truck until home, toss them in the sink for the amount of time it takes to get changed into some dry clothes and put away my gear and crack a brown bottle, usually about 25 minutes before i start to clean them. usually on a pizza box left over from the night before hahah they clean pretty easy the reason for the cardboard is that it soaks up a bit of the slime that comes with the thawing of them, but no different then in the summer other than the guts arn't so sloppy,

 

good luck on the hard stuff.

[limeyangler]

What we do is scale and slab them on the ice. With the scales off they are less slimey when ya get the partially frozen slabs back, and your not finding whitefish scales all over the house still in July....lol. With just the slabs its easy to get the ribs out and the y bone thing that is similar to a lake trout.

 

Hope that helps.

 

LOL..cant tell ya about the perch....too many yummy walleye to worry about keeping perch full of worms

[Mike Pike]

When I catch any fish with an ice hut operator, I put 'em on the floor underneath the seats. The floor is really quite cold no matter how toasty you like to run your propane heater. This way the fish don't actually freeze but stay safely cold til I get 'em back to the car and into a cooler for transportation home.

[Greencoachdog]

Whenever I have to travel with fish I field dress them when the catching is done.

 

First I scale them, then I gut them. When I gut them, I slit open the belly starting at the anal vent and cut all the way to the little connective cartlige holds the belly and gills together, then I cut that cartlige and run the knife around the gills on each side of the fish. Then I grab the gill structure and give a good pull and guts and gills come out together.

 

This method leaves the head on the fish, and they keep much better that way. There's also no question of how many and what kind of fish you have if you're stopped by the game warden on the way home!

 

After a fish is field dressed I throw it in a coolerthat has a layer of ice in the bottom (you could use snow), after all the fish are dressed I cover them with ice and put a pound or 2 of rock salt on the ice (you could skip the rock salt and just use more snow). Keeping fish cold will reduce the stench!

 

When I get the fish home all I have to do is fillet and skin them and don't have to worry about disposing guts and scales! I leave all of the fish in the cooler and pull them out one at a time to fillet them... this reduces the stench as well.