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Just curious...I headed to the river today with a big ziploc freezer bag full of ice inside my small back pack. I wanted to keep some whitefish for the smoker. I had a great time catching 25+ trout/whites but i felt like i had to leave earlier than later to keep the fish from going bad.
As i caught the ones i was gonna keep, I just quickly gutted them and put them in a plastic bag on top of the ziploc bag in my pack.
Any suggestions on keeping your catch fresh while staying fairly light and mobile especially as it gets warmer out?
thanks.
btw, I caught a few 20 inch browns but I released them. Smaller trout taste better than the bigger ones right?
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I like to keep a few here and there more so when Im stillwater fishing but look into the Arapaho Ice House Creel or the Arctic Creel.
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I rarely keep trout and will never make the mistake of keeping a whitefish again. However when I do keep trout in Utah I just wait til I'm about finished fishing to start keeping them. If it's warm enough to worry about fish going bad the fishing is almost always good enough to quickly fill a slot limit- at least where I tend to fish.
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I'll keep a few small ones for a lunch from time to time. If I'm fishing the high country, where the fish tend to be smaller, I'll take one of those soft sided lunch containers and put in a freezer pack. I'll then catch and quickly clean the fish and put in the container with a freezer pack. Works great.
I tend to only keep occasional bigger trout when I'm ice fishing and obviously, it is less of an issue then.
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I am not the least bit embarrassed to say that eating fish is one of the reasons I catch fish.
I prefer to keep the mid-sized versions of most species, releasing the larger brood fish unless it is a species that can overpopulate and stunt. Mid-size tends to taste better, anyway.
I keep a cooler on my kayak and put keepers on ice immediately. Where legal, I gut them on the water, also. I use a cord stringer on streams, but try to not keep fish until I'm within an hour of leaving. I pass the stringer cord through the lower lip skin, not through the gills. That keeps the fish alive until I'm ready to kill and clean it when leaving. Cooler and ice in the truck, of course.
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Over the years I've caught and kept probably hundreds, if not thousands, and I've never bothered with ice. (Powell Stripers being the only exception) Maybe I've done myself a major disservice (flavor-wise), but the idea of actually hauling a cooler full of ice, or a special type of creel, sounds obnoxious. I've never had a fish taste spoiled or gross either. Then again, if every single one of them was spoiled and/or gross, then I suppose I wouldn't know...
Bah.
Anyhow, I like Rocky's idea -- put 'em on a stringer if it's hot. That's good enough. If it's cool, I just toss 'em into a plastic grocery bag and into the backpack they go. I also never gut them stream-side, because it's cold most of the time and I don't like having cold hands. A nice warm kitchen sink is the place to do it, imo. That way I can dissect the stomach under good light and I can take my time.
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LOL fish can spoil in hour in temps 90 degrees or higher Yeah it may have not tasted fishy but Compared to other foods, fish has a unique substrate for microbial growth. Pathogens and Bacteria in the water are usually fought off by a fishes immune system as soon as that fish dies the immune system stops and all the pathogens and bacteria start creating colonies breaking down cell tissue. Ice or freezing can slow the build up of these colonies The longer the fish is left out without ice the more colonies will form.
The bacteria can cause damage to your internal organs. Not to mention INTESTINAL or STOMACH WORMS You may not feel after bad right AFTER you eat it but guarantee when you get worms you'll NEVER think twice about chilling your catch.
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Haha, well, that's something to think about at the very least. Then again, I cook the living dump out of my fish; the idea of sushi makes me wretch. Maybe that's why it's never been an issue? Either that, or my body is a temple and no unclean thing may enter.
Probably not the latter.
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Thanks, a lot of good info on this. For now on, if I'm going to keep a few, I'll wait until the end of the day for that.
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From what I've heard - you'd never want to make sushi out of any utah fresh water fish (unless you smoke em first, and then they aren't raw, so . . . what do you call that). Seems like every grocery store around now has their own Sushi makers. Rhoget is the master!
Dammit - now I'm craving Lox and Bagels! I can fix THAT!
But - you can [url "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceviche"]Ceviche [/url]with a simple mix of lemon, lime, onions and peppers. A pinch of salt and coriander, and you're in business.
I know the twins brought up this topic before, and the idea of a small camp-stove was rendered too.
Nobody's brought up bleeding out. A little snip between the gill and gums.
Trout really don't take long for cooking - just enough to go from translucent to opaque. Catfish are another story - they do well when rendered to perfection. Panfish barely have to look at the heat, and they roll over - put a fork in 'em!
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I ate raw bluegill when I was a kid (that was in the late Cretaceous) with no ill effects. (It's a longer story than this, but it involved sneaking in to a cemetery lake...)
But after reading about the parasites common to Utah fish, I think I'm off the freshwater sashimi idea.
TBD, you really oughta give sushi a try. Much of it doesn't contain much if any raw fish. Sashimi, on the other hand, is nothing but raw fish. I love its delicate flavor - which isn't "fishy" at all.
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As a kid I ate most of what I caught. That was expected.
Anymore I am about 90% catch and release on trout, and about 90% keep on panfish. I love to eat panfish! I mostly release bass too.
If I keep trout, it is really dependent on a lot of circumstances. Generally they are hatchery or what I call nuisance trout... ones like over abundant small brook trout. Those that are non natives or a bleeder. Plus it depends on if I can cook them right away.
I have tried or eaten most types of fish... at least once anyway. That includes some that would now be considered trash fish. Most were not bad if cared for and prepared well.
In the field, I prefer to bleed the fish, gut it and put it on ice or keep it cool. If I am where I can't keep it cool, I don't keep any fish.... such as on a long day hike etc.
I our low humidity climate creels that are evaporation cooled work pretty well. I have an older Artic Cabelas Creel that I frequently carry. It usually isn't to put fish in, but to keep my lunch cool! [crazy]
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I'm not sure that I agree with you in regards to the ceviche dish. Yes, the citrus does cook the fish but in no way does it make it safer than eating it straight raw. Temperatures below 32F and temperatures above 140F kill bacteria, not lemon juice. Research sushi that is served in stores and restaurants-- it will all be fresh frozen.
I have been to Peru and ate ceviche from the docks; trust me, they put great importance into the fish being fresh. Most ceviche will also be made from lenguado (aka flounder) if it is worth anything. That being said, I have made it from sea trout, striped bass (ocean), black sea bass, Chilean sea bass and a some others. Never have I or would I make it from a freshwater fish unless farmed. I haven't tried it but have read that farmed tilapia is safe due to the farming techniques used to raise 'em.
just my .02...
I too use the stringer method... pretty sketch to hang one off the side of the yak in the ocean though 
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Sushi is amazing, you should try it. Just start with one of those fried shrimp rolls, those are pretty tasty. The raw fish is actually more tender and mild in flavor than the cooked stuff in my opinion. They flash freeze the fish which kills the parasites, and they only use choice fish. It really is one of my favorite things.
As for keeping my catch, I do on occasion. If I'm fishing a stream for trout, I do what riverdog does and wait until I'm ready to leave before keeping any. I just put them in a ziploc in the back of my vest and then put them on ice in a cooler when I get back to my car. If I'm in my tube I put them in a fish basket and then into the cooler as soon as I'm done fishing.
You definitely want to handle fish carefully. I think that the citrus in the ceviche will likely denature the protein in the bacteria much like it does with the fish flesh, killing the bacteria, but there is nothing you can do about the toxins some bacteria produce once they become established. Same goes with cooking. Once those endotoxins have been produced, you're going to get sick regardless of how well you cook it.
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[quote gstott]Sushi is amazing, you should try it. Just start with one of those fried shrimp rolls, those are pretty tasty. The raw fish is actually more tender and mild in flavor than the cooked stuff in my opinion. They flash freeze the fish which kills the parasites, and they only use choice fish. It really is one of my favorite things.
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What has been said regarding food safety is on the money, but there is another reason to handle the fish you catch and keep with some care. That is the flavor! A poorly cooled, mishandled trout will taste mushy and off flavor. (yuck) I suspect that is why so many folks don't like wild trout. I have heard a number of times folks say that fish caught ice fishing taste better. While there may be multiple reasons for this, I think it may be that the fish harvested are kept cold due to the elements from the time they are caught all the way to your fridge.
One other tidbit. I have found using a vacuum sealer for frozen fish and game does miracles for the table quality.
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I release most of my fish, but I eat quite a lot as well.
I still love trout. My fishing trips are usually all day kickers. In the summer time, I'll usually take a cooler with me, but if I'm on a hike, hopefully the water is cold enough to chill the fish while the day goes on.
Normally, I don't have many problems with table quality.
Where the meat has been mushy, there have been a few key similarities, which I now try to avoid:
Spawn season - Unless I hook a bleeder, cutts and spring-run bows go back in the water until late summer and beyond. Spring and early summer are typically off-limits for those. Berry cutts are the exception to this.
Just like those above, the fall-run species should be avoided in the fall.
Male fish - When male fish get a little bigger, they're really iffy for me. Sometimes they're just as good as anything, but most of my mushy fish have been big males. Again, Berry cutts are the exception. They're always good. ALWAYS.
Browns - It's probably just me, but I've mostly lost my taste for browns. I'll keep a bleeder, but the only good browns I find anymore are below the Soldier Creek Dam. They actually have pink flesh, compared to others. Great tasting browns in that tail water.
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