I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on exactly what to do with your salmon/steelhead catch. I've heard some different opinions.

I always rip one of the gills out, so it will bleed as soon as the fish hits the bank or the fish box. This also helps with the hens that have eggs. Helps to keep the blood out of them.
Keith

Thanks.

I have a rope in the boat just for holding the kept fish. I slice a gill, and trail it over the side to let the fish bleed. I think the meat tastes better as a result. Can't say that I have done scientific tests, but no-one ever complains about how my fish tastes. Or about how my eggs work.

Riff, mainly it is for quality of the fish on the table and the quality of the eggs like mentioned above. If you do a search on here you will find a couple threads that get into this.

As soon as I decide to keep the fish,I bleed it immediatly by cutting the gills.On a sturgeon I cut him right behing the mouth,theres a big vien that supplys blood to the gills in there.
Bob

If you clip the piece of skin on the underside of the fish directly below the gillplates that seperates the belly from the head you will hit both gill veins making it go by much faster. Table fair is better and it makes the eggs much brighter.

I do just what FFF mentioned. Just watch out - if the heart is still beating, blood can squirt several feet and make a real mess! Just watch where you aim it...

Bleeding and throwing on ice ASAP is very important - especially if you plan to eat chum or pink salmon. Now for winter steelhead, when it's 30 degrees out - you can probably skip the ice part just fine (:

Hey Big Stew, are you reading the good advice here? Take heed bro! ... Stew lands a fish, cuts the tail off, sticks the knife right into the main heart vessel, and then .... he STANDS on the fish with both feet! What a meat cracker!

Naah.

I always bleed the few hatch salmon I keep anymore.Its old habbit from up north.The first thing off after getting to shore I slice the 'chin' and let it bleed.There are enzymes in a fishs blood that immediatly start breaking down the fish upon death.I then take pictures and then clean it.Allin the first 15 20 minutes.
Next time you catch a fish you are going to keep bleed it.If you catch a second don't.You will see what every body means.You can see the blood in the fillets!
We used to cut the hearts out of p-cod and watch them beat 5-10 minutes out uf the fish!

I have to agree with all the resposes above and would like to add that I clean my fish ASAP and ice it down in a cooler if possible. I also will fill the body cavity with a little ice to keep the meat as cool as you can.

Baddawg

Hey RT......Meat Cracker....ROTFLMFAO!!!!!!!

I'm trying to picture this in my mind.....Can't keep from laughing .......Os

Could stuff some moss in the body cavity too, when out on the river with no paper towels after cleaning your fish. The moss helping to suck up any blood left over if some happend to hit the steaks before before ya bled 'im. Just an idea I thought of, maybe it's been mentioned on here before.

I worked on three of my relatives trollers back in the 60's and they would always get a better price for thier fish because we bled them. I have been bleeding my fish for 40 years now.

FWIW
Before didicated weirs and traps were in place at hatcheries the hatchery workers would cut the tails off some live fish and tether them on the oppsite side of the river from where they wanted to collect fish.The fish would move to the opposite side of the river,away form the blood,
and stop moving upriver.There are many good reasons for not putting fish blood in the creek.Perhaps this is one reason that in OREGON you may not clean fish in the stream.However most everyone does.

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: BILGERAT ]

Thanks for all the replies. Is there much stock in the fact that the fish will run away from the blood in the water and also I didn't know that it was illegal to clean your fish in the river I've been doing it my whole life, maybe I should brush up on the regs. Spose I could clean 'em at home. But Ill be sure to bleed'em. :p
Thanks Again

All good suggestions above. One other thing to add is when you first boat the fish, don't bonk it too hard. You don't want to kill it before you bleed it. Just bonk it hard enough to get it to settle down.

Beezer

A few weeks ago we got into a good Sturgeon bite which resulted in two keepers hanging over the side of the boat right away. I quickly stuck a knife thru their hearts resulting in a plume of blood downstream. The bite ended! About 45 minutes later it turned on again.

Do you need to contain the blood in your boat or is it just coincidence that it seemed to spook the fish?

The quality of meat is certainly better if bled.

wow, that is a good question!!I am not a bio or anything but it would make sense.A fish smells its own blood and hides or hunkers down because it figures there is a predetor in the area.?

I always stun and bleed the fish I keep. In the boat, we use a five gallon pail to contain the blood. I slit a couple of gill rakers and put the fish, head down, in the bucket to bleed out. This set up is probably too small for fish over ten pounds. Making the slit under the gills sounds like a good idea, I'll have to try it.

A fish processor told me to always hang fish head down, also. He said that when you hang them head up, all the blood and bodily fluids pool in the flesh near the tail. He used cotton cord looped around the tail to hang fish in his cooler. In the morning there would be a puddle of fluids under each fish.