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by Mike Cyze Caring for Your Catch the Right Way

Having the opportunity to appear and at many sports shows across the country, I have the unique opportunity to speak with many folks regarding the great sport of fishing. During these shows I also enjoy doing live cooking demonstrations on how to properly handle and cook your days catch.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about the habits of anglers and the different ways that they handle their days catch. Problem is that some of their stories would make you cringe. One of the things I stress during these demonstrations is that proper, safe handling is a must when you are going to use it as a food source. As simple as this may sound, many anglers still handle their catch improperly.

This month, lets discuss some of the correct methods that will keep your catch fresh from the time you catch it till the time you prepare and eat it.

Proper handling of your catch should start as soon as you have caught the fish and made the decision to keep it. You should make it a habit to cool your catch as soon as possible. It makes no difference if you fish from shore or from a boat, you should get into the habit of bringing an ice chest with ice with you to preserve your catch. The reason for this is that fresh caught fish should be cleaned and iced as soon as possible if you truly want to retain the flavor. For this purpose, crushed or cubed ice will work much better than block ice. The reason is that you can fully cover the fish and more evenly distribute the cold more evenly. In most cases, you will also be able to cool more fish at one time with this method.

Many anglers make the mistake of putting their catch into their boats livewell and then continue fishing. As the day winds down, they look in the well and find the fish have all died. How long have they been this way? Who knows. Now at the end of the day, they will make the ride home, (fish still in boats well) and then clean them. You can see by this scenario that conditions are not favorable to keeping the fish fresh.

Now it’s not only the boat angler that does this. The shore angler will catch fish, put them on a stringer and toss them into the water off shore, hoping they survive. Again,

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in most instances, they do not. In reality, both these anglers have taken away from the taste of their catch by the way they handled it.

We have talked about the initial handling but lets now focus our attention on after you get the fish home.

If you are not going to eat the fish immediately, it should be cleaned, washed and frozen as soon as possible.

It’s important to understand that the refrigerators in our homes will usually be in the 40 degree temperature area or so. This is not a temperature that is cold enough to keep your fish in top quality freshness. In fact, it is a known fact in the seafood industry that fish will keep twice as well if you keep it chilled to 32 degrees. Now I know your probably wondering what you can do then? Well, there are some tricks you can do to keep your catch at the optimum temperature. First, remember that cold air sinks. For this reason, the bottom part of your refrigerator will always be the coldest. One trick that I have found that works extremely well for keeping your catch fresher is to take and fill one of the bottom bins with crushed or cubed ice. What this does is to actually make the bottom even colder. Simply put your catch in and amongst the ice in the bin. Now when you do this, I want to stress the fact that you should still use the fresh fish as soon as possible within a day, two days maximum. The main reason for this icing is to preserve flavor, along with freshness to the fish.

One little know fact is that it is safe to re-freeze thawed fish as long as it was fresh when it was originally frozen, was properly thawed for use and has been kept properly refrigerated for not more than a day.

All right, now you want to cook some of those fish to eat so lets talk about just how to do it safely and properly.

It will make no difference if you are using some of those fresh fillets from the ice bin or some just thawed fillets, it is always a good idea to soak the fish in a salt water solution for a bit and then rinse the fish thoroughly under cold running water before you start to prepare them. When you do this, you are rinsing away any possible surface bacteria that may be present. You are also going to improve the overall taste of the fish.

Fried or deep fried fish seem to be the most popular so lets talk about preparing those.

One of the first thing you want to do is use fresh cooking oil for your fryer. DO NOT use old used oil, and do not use oil more than one cooking session. As you cook, you can add fresh grease as needed but again, do not reuse when you cook fish.

Depending on what species you are preparing, the fat content of the meat will be different. This will have an effect on how the fish cooks. Agood rule of thumb to use is that the whiter in color the meat, the lower the fat content of that fish.

When getting ready to cook your fish, some simple preparation will make things go smoother. First, arrange your fish pieces by size. You can also cut your fillets to a uniform size if you wish. After your cooking oil has been heated to the proper temperature, carefully add the thickest pieces of fish first. When you do this, do not overload the fryer. This will cause the grease to loose optimum cooking temperature causing greasy fish. After you cook the thickest pieces, now do the thinner pieces.

Regarding oil temperature. most folks prefer the 350 to 375 degree range. Just remember, to hot an oil will quickly cook fish on the outside but not inside. Best is to try your frier since all cook slightly different. Once you get the temperature range that works best for you, leave it set or make a note of it so next time you can go right back to that setting.

It’s very easy folks, by taking the time to handle your catch properly after you catch it, you will have everyone asking you what’s your secret for the excellent tasting fish you prepare.

Till next time, Take Care and I’ll See You On The Water...........

You can E-Mail your fishing and hunting questions to Mike Cyze at: lastcast13@yahoo.com “C C O O -- C C H H II -- 1 1” Charter Lake Michigan Sport Fishing At Its Finest!

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