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tazzeroo2002
member (13)member
  
05/27/2022 01:43PM  
Looking for tips on keeping caught fish fresh until cooking. If you are planning on a fish supper, do you try to catch fish close to the time you are planning to eat? If you catch fish earlier in the day, do you clean them and try to keep the fillets? If you keep them through the day, how do you keep them from going bad by the time you clean them later in the day? (Stringer, basket, ????)

Thanks for any tips.
 
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HawkInCT
member (17)member
  
05/27/2022 03:06PM  
My ten cents:

We try to catch fish that day, bring them to camp and eat them that night. Keeping fish overnight has never worked well for us. Otters, turtles (esp. that huge one on Bentpine), too much time on the stringer, getting windblown into shore...

Sometimes we will move dinners around depending if we get fish or not that day.

No basket, only a stringer. Sometimes we put 2 stringers together (double length) so fish can go deeper. Be careful fish don't work the stringer into rocks and you lose everything. Baskets seem nice but take up too much bulk to pack for us.

Find a spot on shore with shade and access to deep water to tie the stringer off to.

A couple of times, we have been able to build a fish pen with rocks right by shore. It doesn't work for most campsites. Same issues as above - otters, sun. It's not optimal but works sometimes in the spring shortly after ice out.

Lake trout don't do well on stringers in warmer shallow water. Eat them right away or release them.

We have never tried fileting the fish early in the day and eating it later. We've never had enough ice for me to feel comfortable trying. Fish can get mushy quick.
 
pkrien
member (31)member
  
05/27/2022 03:31PM  
We keep them in baskets, they can be a bit cumbersome, but we base camp, so it's not too bad. When we've caught enough for dinner, we find somewhere to filet them away from our camp, put them in ziploc bags, and head back to camp.
 
thegildedgopher
distinguished member(1659)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
05/27/2022 06:40PM  
Just a heads up to actually read the MN fishing regulations. There are some pretty specific rules. For example, if you’re going to have a shore lunch and then keep fishing, I believe you actually need to keep the carcasses in your possession because those fish still count against your daily/possession limit. And if there are any special size/slot regulations (walleye on saganaga, for example) I don’t believe you’re allowed to fillet them until you’re eating because you wouldn’t be able to prove they were legal size if a CO checks you on the water.
 
05/27/2022 09:33PM  
More than a couple times I’ve seen snapping turtles come up from deeper water to patrol the campsite shoreline. Not the whole shoreline, just by the camp site where they are use to finding stringers.
 
analyzer
distinguished member(2162)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
05/28/2022 05:42PM  
We have often had issues with snapping turtles. One resident turtle comes in and checks the back of the canoe every time. One time, in an effort to fool the turtle, we put the stringer on 100' of rope, and weighed it down. The turtle just followed the rope to the prize. A different year, we even tried putting the rope and stringer in the next bay over, and that didn't work either: snapper food.

One trip we didn't have ice, but did have a 2 quart cooler, so we fileted the fish, and kept them in the cooler, with somewhat chilly lake water. They kept a few hours that way.

I've heard people will put wet paper towel on their filets, and it will keep them.

Seems to me, you could put them in a two quart cooler, or maybe even a nalgene, and sink them down 30 plus feet. depending on the time of year, I would think the water would be cold enough below the thermocline to keep them cold for a few hours.

We have made fish ponds in the past. Not exactly leave no trace, sorry. It's challenging to try to make a fish pond that will actually hold a small mouth though.
 
cyclones30
distinguished member(4163)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
05/28/2022 07:38PM  
We tend to just keep fish a few hours before we're planning on eating fish. Trying to keep them long periods of time on a stringer on shore leads to lots of snapping turtle meals and less fish than you put on it to begin with. (if left overnight or for hours)

We're always flexible on meals and what we eat when. If we decide that morning that "today we're eating fish" then if we've got what we need by lunch we'll clean and eat them for lunch. If we don't have the fish or two we were hoping to eat then I guess it'll be for supper. No big deal. But I'm not portaging fish...mostly due to not really fishing much on travel days. I'm not keeping fish overnight. If I want fish to eat tomorrow I'll catch a couple tomorrow. (hopefully)
 
missmolly
distinguished member(7681)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
05/29/2022 11:10AM  
I fish Crown Lakes in Canada, where it's easy to catch fish, so I release all of the morning's catch until I'm within sight of the camp. Then I cast and keep that fish. It's between ten and eleven in the morning at that point, so I eat that fish right away and don't eat fish again that day.
 
mike13
member (14)member
  
05/29/2022 10:45PM  
I have kept them overnight by first fileting away from camp then wrapping them in wet moss and covering with a wet hand towel. The evaporation creates a cooling effect. We place them well away from camp, usually under a pine tree. Next morning the are surprisingly cool and firm. Quick rinse with filered water, pat them dry and fry them up for breakfast. In cooler temps they will last through the next day if you dunk the whole moss bundle in the lake throughout the day. Last year when I did this it was mid-June and temps were in the high 70's or low 80's. I've never had critters mess with them. Have done this probably 10 time in my 30 years of canoe tripping. I have also used this technique for brookies and splake outside of the BWCA.
 
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