OK, so what went wrong here? (A tale of UN-freshness)

[Craig DuShane]

OK, I'll explain all the details along with some of my thoughts and then you guys can tell me what you think went wrong.

We started out fishing at about 7am throwing our keepers (about 10 or so) in a small/med cooler filled a little less than 1/2 way with ice and water (water was from a hose, didn't use bayou water).

We came in for lunch at about 11am at which time I added even more ice to the cooler. The ice from the morning was still mostly there...not melted yet.

I went back out and caught about 12 or so more before coming in for the day (about 8pm). I added the 2 that my mom caught from the dock that she put in a wire basket and were very lively when I added them to the ice water.

I loaded up her automatic fish scaler tumble drum type thing and ran it for 10 minutes (24 total fish). When I was taking the fish out from the cooler to put into the scaler I had to dump some of the ice and water out because it was hurting my hands being so cold...so it wasn't a matter of that water being too warm. I did not check to see if the water from the hose was warm from sitting all day though, so maybe this had something to do with it too?

When I went to check to see if the fish were ready to clean, a few still had some scales on them so I TRIED to start the scaler back up. A fuse must have blown or something because the scaler wouldn't turn on. It took us probably about 20 minutes to get it back running and finish scaling the fish....so about 30 or so minutes to get them from the cooler to a bucket to bring inside to fillet.

It took about 10 minutes or so to fillet all the fish in the bucket. During this time we noticed some of the meat had an off color kind of yellowish tint to it. It smelled kind of bad too. Some of the fillets felt a little less firm than normal to me as well.

-So, was it the 13 hours of being dead before being cleaned?

-Was it the 30-40 minutes of not being in ice water?

-Possible warmish water from the hose into the scaler?

-Something else we're missing?

I'd also appreciate any tips/tricks/advice you guys can provide concerning the proper storage of fish from catch to cleaning. Simpler/faster/easier is better, but will consider putting in more work if it's the absolute best no questions asked no other method even comes close way to do it.

Thanks,

-Craig

[Tony Livingston]

I much prefer to fillet live fish, but my situation is different than most folks.  As it stands now, I keep my fish alive, in a fish basket, in the same water they came from. If I had to travel some distance before I could clean the fish, I would transfer them to a cooler and ice them down.

[Leo Nguyen]

-So, was it the 13 hours of being dead before being cleaned?

* No. As long as the fish is properly store at 36°F or less, you're fine. It slows down most, if not all, bacteria that cause post-mortem biological breakdown. However, adding 3 tablespoon of salt to every gallon of ice water will also help to prevent spoilage even further.

-Was it the 30-40 minutes of not being in ice water?

* Yes. Once you start the process of scaling the fish, depend on where you harvested the fish from, you only have a small windows of opportunity to get the scaled fish to the table to filleting. If you removed the fish from brackish water, or water with heavy algae bloom, the chance of the fish exposed to high level of bacteria is high. It only takes 20 minutes for the exposed meet at room temp to go from good to bad. Always have the ice cool handy. Reuse the cooler that you held the fish in. Always have a nice pair of thick dish washing gloves to prevent your hands from freezing off as you place the fish from ice cooler to the tumbler, and back to the cooler.

-Possible warmish water from the hose into the scaler?

* It's also a contributing factor in creating that perfect tempt for the bacteria to spoil the meat, and also the meat to go degradate even faster.

-Something else we're missing?

* Salt. Lots and lots of salt. If you're not using ice, use salt to preserve the fish. If you're  using ice, use a bit of salt to boost the preservation during transport. If you're exposing dead fish in warm water and air, do it within 10 minutes, and place the fish back to the chilly water within 10 minutes.

[Craig DuShane]

Wow, very informative. Thanks Leo!