Ice Fishing......Keeping Your Fish Fresh, Preparing Before Cleaning....Food Safety!

Ice Fishing is a fun past time of many Canadians during our winter months. It is always a thrill when that bell starts ringing, or that tipper plops down, cause that means you got a fish. So now that you got that fish, what now. This post is dedicated to what you should do with that Fish while out on the ice, keeping it fresh, and preparing it for cleaning. Fish Food Safety, when ICE FISHING!

So now that you have the fish, lets talk about what happens to the fish after you pull the sucker out of the hole. Not everyone will have the chance to clean the fish right away, and in many cases it is illegal to gut and clean a fish on the ice, so what should you do to keep the fish fresh and ready to take home after a long day of fishing. The guidelines that I am going to speak of are what I do. All my skills were taught to me by First Nations people who have fished for centuries.

The easiest thing to do with your fish, is to take a cooler or a 5 gallon bucket on the ice with you, fill it half up with water and place the fish "alive" in the bucket. This will ensure the fish will not freeze so that you can transport it home fresh and clean immediately when you get home. Now if you seem to have forgotten a bucket, then you may want to bury the fresh fish in snow and place a marker where you buried it, this will ensure that the fish will take a long time to freeze. Then when you leave, put the fish and snow in a bag to transport home and clean it immediately. Another way we ensure fresh fish is to make a LIVEWELL on the ice. To do this is to drill a hole in the ice. As the ice should be at least 2.5 to 3 feet deep before you should be out on the ice, you will want to drill a hole about 1 foot deep then use a spud and punch a hole through to the water, just big enough to allow enough water through. Place the fish in the hole till it's time to go home. You can also make another hole close by to where your fishing and place the fish on a stringer attach the fish to the spud handle and lower it down the hole.

Now lets talk about when you get home. The first thing you should do if your fish has frozen, is place it in a tub of cold water, to allow it to thaw, typically 30 minutes. However, unfrozen fish do maintain their firmness and taste a lot better if not frozen before being cleaned. Further, when the fish die, you should gut them immediately when it is possible, you don’t want to allow the sour, bacteria-filled stomach and intestinal juices to touch the flesh for very long. So cleaning your fish also bleeds them, the blood left in the flesh speeds the deterioration of the quality of the meat. Wash all gutted fish in a sink of cold water to remove the bacteria, then place snow or crushed ice around the fish to reduce any bacterial growth.

There is another idea in keeping your fish fresh while out on the ice. Super-chilling fish. If you have gone ahead and cleaned your fish while out on the ice, because perhaps you are staying for a few days, then you can leave the fish that has been gutted on ice for five days and often longer. You can properly store your fillets in an insulated cooler with several inches of snow mixed with crush ice then leave a drain hole open. Now in a different container, mix coarse ice cream salt with crushed ice/snow mix with a ratio of 1 to 20, so for an average-sized cooler it would be one pound of salt to 20 pounds of ice. Unfrozen fish will maintain their firmness, also will taste better when not frozen before it can be
cleaned.

Remember, if you do prepare a meal, and eat it at your ice hut, while out on the ice, the fish that you eat, is included as a fish towards your daily limited allowed. However, your limit starts over a midnight. If you clean your fish out on the ice, you must keep your carcass to show enforcement officers. Limits and rule do vary from province to province or state to state so ensure you know all your rules before going out on the ice, and just bundle up and have fun.

Sometime when we get back to the house, we may not be able to clean our fish immediately, so we take the entire whole fish and just throw it in the freezer. I may get to it a week later, and that is just fine, just be sure to thaw first before you clean it, then cook it up, do not re freeze your meat once cleaned. You clean a fish caught ice fishing the same way you would if you caught it in a boat in the summertime.

So there you have it folks, safety to consider when Ice fishing and keeping that prize fish fresh before you can cook it.

Happy Ice Fishing Trails Folks

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