cleaning fish question

[Dakota Iceman]

Ok, here is my question. I caught some walleyes last night out on the river. The fish froze solid on the ice last night and are still froze this morning.....are they still good to clean and eat? these are a couple nice pigs and i have brought them in the sink and getting the electric knife out...but was questioninbg the fact that it has been since last night. please advise.

[Guest]

They'll be just fine as long as you don't thaw them out with hot water. Mmmmm...fresh walleye for the big game!

[Guest]

there fine to clean and eatleave the skin on and very breifly run under hot water and you can pull the skin off by hand. a lil trick i learned workin at a restaraunt they get there eye fillets froze with the skin on.so just cut the fillets off and try the hot water trick its real easy.
good luck

[Guest]

very breifly by that i mean turn on the hot water and quickly run the fillet across under the water.

[Dakota Iceman]

Ok, getting ready to clean and prepare for the feast....a little walleye.....a little football....a little beer ....ok, more beeer and some football. Thanks for the info guys.

[Steve Foss]

Yup, thaw them and clean. Except I leave them in a sinkful of lukewarm water, not even warm water, and that thaws them OK. Any warm or hot water begins to cook em.

Some guys, once the fish are frozen on the ice, just chuck them in the freezer whole, with the skin on, which acts as a great freezer wrap and the meat can't dry out or freezer burn. When they're ready to prepare them, they take them out of the freezer, thaw them, fillet and eat. Worked really great for lake trout I got last weekend.

[This message has been edited by stfcatfish (edited 01-26-2003).]

[Dakota Iceman]

lol.....ok i think i just got info telling me that i could literally start throwing my fish frozen solid on the ice in the freezer whole guts and all and then clean them at my leisure when i dethaw for cooking?.......please tell me this isnt so!! The KING of procrastination is getting all giddy just thinking about it. Who wants to clean fish at 11.00 at night? Could just see the look on my wifes face when she opens the freezer and see a bunch of eyes strewn all over the chest freezer staring back at her!!! lmao.

[The Chemist]

Last weekend, I took the fish I had laid them on a platice garbage bad and then covered them with one also and left them to thaw over night. In the morning I woke up and cleaned them. When I got home from the cabin, I rinsed the filets and put 'em on freezer paper, and set them outide for 20 minutes. Frozen solid and ready for the freezer.

[Dano2]

But isn't that the same as re-freezing fish?
I heard this isn't good

[Steve Foss]

Two reasons I can think of, that I've heard, why people avoid re-freezing fish.

1. It makes the fillets mushy. Freezing crystalizes water (which is a large percentage of any flesh), and crystalization breaks down the cell walls, making the fillet mushy. If you freeze it twice, you run the risk of mushy meat. That being said, I've done it a bunch of times and never noticed the difference.

2. If they stay thawed too long between freezing (no, I don't know how long is too long), bacteria can develop, and freezing doesn't kill all the baddies.

[Guest]

Yup you can just chuck them suckers in the freezer, and thaw them out when ever you want fresh fish. The slime layer protects the fish from freezer burn. I put mine in plastic grocery bags and wrap them up a little so the wifey does not get to ticked off.
I learned this from a old timer. I never thought it would work,but it does.Give it a try.

[Fish-n-Freak]

I do it all the time with panfish. I go out late (after my 3 year old goes to bed) on a local lake, might get 4-6 keeper crappies and/or sunnies in a few hours of sorting. Those fish just get tossed in the freezer and after a few nights of this, I have enough fish to make it worth getting dirty. I hate cleaning 4 sunnies at a time.

Always nice to clean your catch when you want to!

Steve

[doubleUcubed]

I usually clean mine after they thaw the first time without trying to refreeze them again. A buddy of mine swears up and down that if you are going to freeze walleye that you should wrap the whole fish in newspaper and freeze that way. When you want fish, thaw them out and fillet as you would had you just caught them!

[Minnetonka]

Pig Sticka:

To minimize the slime on fish that have been frozen and then thawed to clean them, rinse with cold water. Warm water generates more slime. Make sure that you keep the slime from the fillets because that causes the "fishy" taste.

For a great cutting surface I use a piece of counter top that was cut out for the sink in our kitchen. I bet if you found a home builder or a cabinet shop you could pick up one of these free. I just made sure that I sealed the bottom and sides of the particle board base.

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"I'd rather be fishing"

Mike

[The Chemist]

Pig: check out your local Menards. Ask them if they have any damaged counter tops. I bought one for my dad from Home Valu when I worked there. Had the guys put an 8 in hole in the middle of the table as a waste hole. and had the entire this finished. The extra end I took so that I have one that is 3 feet long. But I always use newspaper anyways. IT makes a good means of handling the guts.

[Guest]

The counter top works good...I got a chunk from the sink cut-out...nice surface for filleting...Also, about a 3 foot chunk of 2x10 or 2x12 works great too.

[Guest]

I bought a vacuum bagger and fryed up a batch of perch from last year over Christmas that tasted as good as the fresh ones I had last night.

Just thought I'd add that.

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Kevin Neve's Devils Lake Guide Service
fishingminnesota.com/kevin-neve-guiding/
e-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 701-473-5411 or 701-351-4989
Minnewaukan ND

[The Chemist]

Just got back from Menards. You can get a 2-3ft counter for around $2-3 and if you talk to a clerk you may get it for less.

[Steve Foss]

Well, these counter remnants work well, but it's really not necessary unless your wife won't let you fillet fish in the kitchen. Cutting boards, which are cheap (and your missus probably has 1,423 in different sizes), work really well.

It's a simple matter to use a cutting board on top of the counter. Most kitchen flip-top garbage cans come in under the counter's surface. I just back the garbage can up tight to the counter, clean the fish on the cutting board, move the guts right into the garbage can/bag and chuck the fillets into the sink. Then you just scrub the cutting board, rinse it and you're ready for next time.

And take out the trash right away. No use letting the dog nose up the lid and strew the guts all over the kitchen while you're snoring away at 2 a.m.

[Pig_sticka]

i just cleaned 15 walleyes n crappies mixed at 12:30 last night frozen for a week or so and thawed em. took about 5 hours to thaw em out but it seemed to work good. just the slime really sucked. i might have to look into a good cutting board. anyone know of what i can use besides just newspaper on the washing machine

[icehousebob]

When one of my sons was in high school shop class, he brought me home a 2x2 foot square of Corian that someone had goofed a corner on and discarded. Its scary what that stuff goes for in stores, but its the greatest fish cleaning surface I've ever used. I've had a few people try to talk me out of it and I had to retrieve it twice from a neighbor.[He no longer has borrowing rights]