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.