Best way to preserve bass & perch meat freshness ? After docking with them alive on a stringer in the water

[cyclops2]

Forcibly slit the arteries in the gill area to cause a bleed out. Then into a clean plastic bag.  Or just Just put the stringer of wiggling fish into the bag. Golf cart drive of 1 minute & into the freezer or refrigerator until the old guy is read to fillet them at some time? All are aware of the fact that I call just before 12 noon and I am coming in with them.

 

[TnRiver46]

I toss them into a cooler full of ice. Or the livewell, or keep them alive on a stringer 

[cyclops2]

I could SQUEEZE a small white foam ice cooler onto the crowded 16 ' X 4 ' wide Lowe Aluminum open fish boat. But I really am running out of floor space. I am already adding the 5 gallon H D pail as a minnow tank. I will be left with only the 4' X 3' seat & driving space. 

N Y law will possibly require me to hold M O B drill before each outing.

[ThatFishingGuy]

Any fish I plan on eating I keep alive on a stringer until I'm ready to leave. Then I kill it with either a bonk/knife to the brain, and then cut the gills to bleed em out. The brain is dead the but the heart is still pumping so it pumps all the blood out keeping the meat fresh. Then straight onto the ice.

[cyclops2]

Many thanks Guy.  I can have them bring a larger plastic bag with some ice in it.   

[Spankey]

Walleye taste better than bass. 

[cyclops2]

Fresh caught & filleted. Ours actually smell slightly sweet aroma. Perch can also.

[Captain Phil]

Here in Florida, bass are not that good to eat.   Unless they come from very clear lakes out in the middle of nowhere, they have a muddy taste.  Everglades bass are the worst.  Some Florida lakes have warning signs advising you not to eat the fish.   Back in the day we used to soak them in milk or salt water to draw out that taste.  You can fry anything and make it edible.  I have eaten a lot of northern walleye in my day and find them better than any other fresh water fish. Pike are excellent too, but you have to know how to clean them so you avoid the bones.  Release bass, don't kill them.   

[cyclops2]

Bingo Captain Phil.

 

My Snow Bird Seniors agree totally. Why I meat fish for them all summer.

[2tall79]

The best way I've found to preserve bass meat is to release them immediately after catching them.

[cyclops2]

Most do not like the gamey  taste of bass.  Perch somehow are always good to them.  

[TnRiver46]

Bass is delicious, if it tastes bad you did something wrong (usually it’s a pre conceived notion that it’s going to taste bad) 

5 hours ago, Captain Phil said:

  Release bass, don't kill them.   

Agree to disagree, I think they are awesome and will continue to kill them until I’m dead or physically unable 

[cyclops2]

There might be a lot of truth to why our bass taste not great. They eat a LOT of gobies now before Gobies They were almost perfect flavor eating smaller game fish.

[Bird]

Fish mainly clear mountain lakes and the bass are excellent to eat.

I only keep a few but when I do, they go from boat to the wife's hands and then to the frying pan. 

[TnRiver46]

I’ve eaten them from south Florida to northern Michigan and several places in between, always the same. I’ve also fed them to dozens of people that thought they weren’t fit to eat, they typically end up saying it’s the best fish they’ve ever had 

 

I honestly think people want them (in their minds) to taste differently from different places, but they don’t . It’s like those blind taste tests where they give people the exact same food and tell them one is more expensive. They always say the more expensive one taste better when in reality it was all the same food on two different plates 

[slonezp]

5 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Bass is delicious, if it tastes bad you did something wrong (usually it’s a pre conceived notion that it’s going to taste bad) 

Agree to disagree, I think they are awesome and will continue to kill them until I’m dead or physically unable 

A lot of the taste has to do with the body of water. Fish that live in muddy areas do not taste as good as fish that live in sandy or rocky areas. This goes for all species. 

[cyclops2]

1 end of our bay is pure BLACK muck. Push a stick in & Hydrogen Sulfide  ?  gas smell comes out of it. But the baitfish love the reeds & cattails for protection.

[N Florida Mike]

I live on a mud bottom lake and have eaten bass out of it for over 45 years. They are very good if you filet and fry them. I don’t like them quite as good eating them bone - in with the skin still  attached. I also like them best under 16 inch. I dont keep any over 17 unless they die on me . 

I throw the ones I’m keeping in a cooler with water or in a bucket. They are fine because I dont fish after 11 much in the summer. I just go home and filet them. If it’s a road trip and warm I put them on ice for the ride home. They stay in the livewell until then. I dont use stringers much anymore and certainly dont hang them off the boat. Too many turtles, gators, and snakes for that…

[gim]

I have not kept fish in years but when I used to and we did not intend to eat them the same day, we vacuum sealed them. It’s the air that causes the filet to decrease in quality.

 

I primarily just use my vacuum sealer for pheasants and specific cuts of venison now.

 

Yellow perch out of cold water was always the best eating fish I could find. Unfortunately there are no jumbos left now around here other than dinks.

[cyclops2]

My friend made up a measuring board with Min & Max length of each type of fish.  I had to bring in 1 Jack Yellow Perch.  Some how the giant guy had a broken artery that would not stop. It looked like a small Walleye.  What a breeder. Victor told me to be more careful with the breeder sized fish.

 

I had to reread the topic. I tend to wander. 

[slonezp]

29 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I have not kept fish in years but when I used to and we did not intend to eat them the same day, we vacuum sealed them. It’s the air that causes the filet to decrease in quality.

 

I primarily just use my vacuum sealer for pheasants and specific cuts of venison now.

 

Yellow perch out of cold water was always the best eating fish I could find. Unfortunately there are no jumbos left now around here other than dinks.

Freeze the filets in water. It takes up more room in the freezer but, more importantly, it doesn't affect the quality of the filet.

[T-Billy]

7 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Bass is delicious, if it tastes bad you did something wrong (usually it’s a pre conceived notion that it’s going to taste bad) 

Agree to disagree, I think they are awesome and will continue to kill them until I’m dead or physically unable 

I'm with ya brother. I have no problem eating the sacred cow. LM and SM are both delicious. I've been eating more of 'em since I bought an electric bubba blade last year. That thing's worth every penny. Takes a minute and a half tops to turn a fish into two boneless fillets, and I miss less meat with it than with a regular fillet knife. Works great on smaller fish like crappie too.  Outstanding tool.

[gim]

While I do not have a problem with someone occasionally keeping a smaller sized bass, over harvest of them would decimate our fisheries here quickly in MN.  Especially if people started keeping big ones.  Bass are not stocked here.  They take a long time to reach trophy caliber size in the cold waters of the north.  Like 10 years.  Luckily bass are not specifically targeted (whether for harvest or not) here as much as other species.  I would rank them at least 4th down the list in popularity behind walleye, panfish, and trout.  And there is a closed season in the spring.

 

I recently joined the Mille Lacs Smallmouth Alliance which is a conservation effort to maintain a healthy, trophy caliber population of brown bass in the lake.  For years, the bag limit of smallmouth on Mille Lacs was one daily over 21 inches.  Essentially, just a trophy.  That bag limit has now changed to 3 daily under 17 inches during a portion of the year.  There is a push to go back to one daily.  I'd prefer it to be none at all.  A replica is better than a skin mount anyways.  It took many years for this lake to turn into a smallmouth destination and we could ruin it much faster.

[Bird]

16 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I’ve eaten them from south Florida to northern Michigan and several places in between, always the same. I’ve also fed them to dozens of people that thought they weren’t fit to eat, they typically end up saying it’s the best fish they’ve ever had 

 

I honestly think people want them (in their minds) to taste differently from different places, but they don’t . It’s like those blind taste tests where they give people the exact same food and tell them one is more expensive. They always say the more expensive one taste better when in reality it was all the same food on two different plates 

Placebo is real. Lol

A cheap cup of 7-11 coffee was compared to an expensive cup of Starbucks coffee and 100 people couldn't taste a difference. 

[TnRiver46]

11 minutes ago, gimruis said:

While I do not have a problem with someone occasionally keeping a smaller sized bass, over harvest of them would decimate our fisheries here quickly in MN.  Especially if people started keeping big ones.  Bass are not stocked here.  They take a long time to reach trophy caliber size in the cold waters of the north.  Like 10 years.  Luckily bass are not specifically targeted (whether for harvest or not) here as much as other species.  I would rank them at least 4th down the list in popularity behind walleye, panfish, and trout.  And there is a closed season in the spring.

 

I recently joined the Mille Lacs Smallmouth Alliance which is a conservation effort to maintain a healthy, trophy caliber population of brown bass in the lake.  For years, the bag limit of smallmouth on Mille Lacs was one daily over 21 inches.  Essentially, just a trophy.  That bag limit has now changed to 3 daily under 17 inches during a portion of the year.  There is a push to go back to one daily.  I'd prefer it to be none at all.  A replica is better than a skin mount anyways.  It took many years for this lake to turn into a smallmouth destination and we could ruin it much faster.

My buddy goes up to the boundary waters, he says people think he’s crazy for targeting bass. He gets monsters with a fly rod and a mouse, apparently everyone else is targeting lake trout and walleye 

 

8 minutes ago, Bird said:

Placebo is real. Lol

A cheap cup of 7-11 coffee was compared to an expensive cup of Starbucks coffee and 100 people couldn't taste a difference. 

Thank you! Haha.  
 

I now retract all of your demerits for erroneous crystal ball readings in the NFL