Fastest And Most Effective Way To Kill Your Catch

[trungie]

Whats the fastest and most effective way to quickly kill your fish? Cant find anything definitive online. I've read:

• use a screw driver / knife and stab the brain
  
• cut their gills (how?)
  
• wack them on the head (isnt that a painful death? its not mma)
  
• put it in a ice slurry
  
• shoot it with a gun (WTF?)
  

And next most importantly, HOW IS IT DONE EXACTLY?

[shefford]

What we do is with the larger fish, bang them on the head with a large blunt instrument.

To "daze", stun them and then we slit their throats and bleed them in a kill tank.

Its all done in about 2 seconds!

Not sure how everyone else does it though.

[inhlanzi]

I find an iki spike is very effective on most species and then into a sea water ice slurry

cheers

inhlanzi

[jewgaffer]

Brain spiking a freshly caught fish quickly, cuts off the glands that release a fluid which gets into the flesh and thru to the skin and can affect the taste.

The correct way to brain spike a take home fish is to insert the spike above and about 5-10mm backward of the eyes depending on the size of the fish and push the spike downwards at about 45degrees all the way thru the head. For best eating quality the fish should be bled and the gills removed, put on frozen satchels of ice, and kept out of ice slurry or saltwater and nowhere near bait. It's best to keep the gut cavity closed with the gut left until you get home or at least until the end of the session.

Cheers

jewgaffer

[trungie]

Brain spiking a freshly caught fish quickly, cuts off the glands that release a fluid which gets into the flesh and thru to the skin and can affect the taste.

The correct way to brain spike a take home fish is to insert the spike above and about 5-10mm backward of the eyes depending on the size of the fish and push the spike downwards at about 45degrees all the way thru the head. For best eating quality the fish should be bled and the gills removed, put on frozen satchels of ice, and kept out of ice slurry or saltwater and nowhere near bait. It's best to keep the gut cavity closed with the gut left until you get home or at least until the end of the session.

Cheers

jewgaffer

Thanks for the reply jewgaffer. It's pure gold.

A few questions:

1. about the 45 degrees. once ive located the spot (1cm above the eye annd 1cm backwards towards the body) to spike, do i push down 45 degrees towards the body of the fish? which direction?

2. how do i bleed the fish properly? what are the steps? im a complete newbie!

3. why do you keep the fish out of an ice slurry? wouldnt that be good since it'll freeze the flesh real good? how about putting the fish in a bag and then in the slurry?

4. why keep the guts in until u get home?

[slinkymalinky]

Ikijimi spike through the brain like Inhlanzi and Jewgaffer. You can buy them but it's easy to make a spike... just sharpen the end of a screwdriver into a point. It kills instantly and as humanely as possible which in turn ensures the best quality of the fish for eating. Fish for the Japanese sashimi market are killed this way and if it's good enough for fish that fetch hundreds of dollars a kilo, it works for me.

Cheers, Slinky

[brother of tang]

Whats the fastest and most effective way to quickly kill your fish? Cant find anything definitive online. I've read:

• use a screw driver / knife and stab the brain
  
• cut their gills (how?)
  
• wack them on the head (isnt that a painful death? its not mma)
  
• put it in a ice slurry
  
• shoot it with a gun (WTF?)
  

And next most importantly, HOW IS IT DONE EXACTLY?

If you gonna use number 5, shoot it, i wouldn't do it on the floor of the boat, or you'd wanna have a life jacket handy. What a bloody stupid idea. I use a keeper net to keep 'em alive untill i clean 'em, then the 1st thing i do is cut the head off, or for some fish i break their neck to bleed 'em and then just into an esky with some of the water you're fishing in and change it every hour or so.

Edited May 30, 2008 by hookenup

[jewgaffer]

Thanks for the reply jewgaffer. It's pure gold.

A few questions:

1. about the 45 degrees. once ive located the spot (1cm above the eye annd 1cm backwards towards the body) to spike, do i push down 45 degrees towards the body of the fish? which direction?

2. how do i bleed the fish properly? what are the steps? im a complete newbie!

3. why do you keep the fish out of an ice slurry? wouldnt that be good since it'll freeze the flesh real good? how about putting the fish in a bag and then in the slurry?

4. why keep the guts in until u get home?

Hi xman

1. Insert the spike in the right hand side of the fish near the top of the head and push the spike downwards at approximately 45 degrees towards the spinal area in the neck until it goes all the way thru the head.

2. To bleed the fish, cut thru the throat and do a few strokes with the knife a little into the spine below the neck area.

3. To stop the flesh from going soft don't keep fish in salt water in a keeper net. They will also panic in a keeper net as they do in a trawler net and the glands will release the juice I refer to in my first reply. Don't allow fish to make any contact with slurry either. Ice slurry also softens the flesh and the freezing process of ice can come thru and affect the taste as well. The ideal situation is to use several sealed satchels of dry ice in sheet form. What I often do as an alternative is fill three or four plastic milk bottles with water, freeze and keep them in the boat's esky or kill tank until I get home.

4. Yes keep the gut in and the stomach closed up otherwise bacteria can get into the flesh and rigor mortis sets into the flesh unless it's snap frozen immediately and we can't really do that until we get home.

Hope this helps. My father and uncles came from many generations of commercal fishermen and that was the way they always treated their catch and the way I was taught.

Cheers

jewgaffer

[squizzytaylor]

For general smaller species (up to the 5-6kg mark, I cut the throat as soon as the fish hits the deck making sure to sever the spine thus eliminating any pain to the fish, the fish is then immedately gutted and put in a slurry of ice and saltwater.

I have a baitboard on the port side of the boat (affectionately known as the alter) which has a drainage tube running over the side where the above takes place this leaves the boat clean and the mess gets washed straight out with a bucket of seawater.

Geoff

[Josh88]

Mate what i do (and i dont have anything flash or any expensive boat with plumbed livewell)... I have an big tropical ice box esky thing, around 65 litres or so.. that thing is awesome. Insulated thick keeps ice for days if u wanna use ice however for keeping my fish fresh i put them straight into the ice box 3/4 filled with water. The large amount of water keeps them alive well for ages and i have had a few bream and couple flathead inside alive with no aerator for half a day fine. I also use it as a live bait tank at the start of some trips and occasionally you may need to exchange a few buckets of water from it. But what better way to keep a fish fresh than to bring it home LIVE and kill it immediately with a knife and clean it and cook the fillets up then and there and freeze the rest? Thats as fresh as you can get if u ask me.

I don't know technically speaking if this affects the quality of meat in any way but if it does i'd say it would have to be much of a muchness... Its always tasted fresh and as long as your not a dud cook ive never been disappointed.

Bonus is if u dont wanna keep fish live you can load that same ice box up with ice and drinks or bait etc...

Keep in mind this isnt a small esky. It holds up to 65litres of water in my model, so keeping fish live for hrs and for the trip home is very easy.

People pay good money to eat live seafood at restaurants mate!

Keeping them in esky will stress them out and they'll release the gland juices like Jewgaffer said. If you have a 2-3kg fish it won't stay alive long at all in an esky. I reckon best is the smack them on the head or brain spike and bleed, then put it esky when its done. All personal choice though.....