Northwest Fishing Reports

Another thread spurned a question I want to ask you all.

I ALWAYS bleed my fish and in the past have cleaned (gutted) them riverside, then filleted (sp?) them at home.

A few outings lately I have bled my fish, then taken them home whole and filleted them without cleaning them 1st. I haven't yet noticed a difference in the quality of the meat but wanted to hear your take on each.

As long as I bled fish first it didn't matter if they were gutted during fileting or not.

I never clean my fish, always just fillet them at the ramp and throw the carcase and guts intact back into the water. Saves on having a mess at home

This would be one of those "depends" answers. Depends on where I'm fishing, how far away from the house, how soon I'll process the salmon when I get home. My routine is to bleed and gut soon after the catch, then ice them. I may not get home til 10pm or later so processing for the table or freezer is usually the next day.

Similar to you GP, last season I always bled right away and then cleaned before bringing home to be filleted. This season I started the bleed, then clean/fillet at home. So far everything we've had seems to be as good as last years. Unlike mammals, there is no heat to retain in the fishes core that can degrade the meat, so think getting the blood out and the fish on ice is the more important thing. FWIW.

I've seen people do terrible things with their fish. In fact, this year I saw a guy catch a nice 8lb coho buck then toss it up on the bank where it sat in the sun for at least two hours. (I left first.)
Bet that one tasted a bit odd...

I bleed the fish right away. Keeps the meat fresher. Then before I leave for the day I gut and fillet.

Probably won't find any guys willing to try it down here,..and I don't do it anymore due to lack of freezer space, but for conversation sake: During the 10 years I spent in Nome I talked with quite a few old Yupik fishermen who would freeze their fish whole without cleaning them. They claimed the meat lasted longer without any chance of bacteria entering the body cavity. I tried it for several seasons. When I caught Silvers I would freeze them whole after bleeding. Then when we wanted some salmon steaks I would take the frozen carcasses and run them through my meat bandsaw. It worked well and made for perfect steaks and I just had to poke the frozen section of innards out when they started to thaw. It won't work for fillets, of course.

This brings up a question I was just talking about with another angler...can we fillet the fish on the river at the end of our day? The way I read the regs, it sounds like it's ok as long as it's at the end of your fishing day. But the way these things are worded you have to be an attorney to decipher what's actually ok or not. I've heard different things from different people.

If I'm going to fillet the fish, I bleed them and put hem on ice. I find that it is easier for me to fillet a fish when it is whole as opposed to being gutted.

mizm05 wrote:This brings up a question I was just talking about with another angler...can we fillet the fish on the river at the end of our day? The way I read the regs, it sounds like it's ok as long as it's at the end of your fishing day. But the way these things are worded you have to be an attorney to decipher what's actually ok or not. I've heard different things from different people.

Yeah it's pretty unclear because there is a requirement that an angler be able to prove that you harvested a legal fish if challenged by a warden. Hard to do with just a fillet. I'm not sure if that's just while fishing or until you get the fish home, will have to look into it again.
Generally I only bleed riverside, sometimes gut but not always. I take the guts out and head off before filleting (a la the "kidkokanee" method on utube) I've found I get the most meat off of the fish with this method. I have not noticed a difference in taste/quality of a riverside bled and gutted fish vs. one that was only bled riverside.

It's all about time and temperature. I'll leave it at that.