TAKING CARE OF YOUR CATCH, FROM THE LANDING NET TO THE DINNER TABLE

By Terry Rudnick

Fish is generally considered one of the healthiest foods we can eat, and there are hundreds of ways to prepare it for the table, making it an extremely versatile food. As salmon anglers, we're lucky, because, where the regulations and our own angling talents allow, we can bring home this great source of protein whenever we feel like it. And, unlike the non-angling consumers who have to buy their fish at the supermarket, we can enjoy the best fish of all, fresh fish! Keeping salmon fresh, or at least fresh-tasting, is the key, and it really takes only a little effort on our part. We have only to remember five simple rules to ensure that every fish we kill will taste its very best. Here are those rules, in the order we're most likely to need them.

Here are what I would consider some of the most important variables to think about when you're out on the fishing grounds at first light, trying to decide which rod to drag out of the locker and what terminal gear you should be digging out of the tacklebox:

n Kill fish quickly. I'm always surprised when I see a live salmon being towed behind a boat at the end of a rope or gasping for breath at the edge of a river with a line extending from its jaw to an overhanging tree limb. If the people doing that think they're somehow enhancing or extending the quality of the fresh fish they've just caught, they're wrong. A salmon-or any fish--on a tether or stringer continues to struggle after it's caught, which produces lactic acid. That's the same stuff that makes your muscles ache when you work out, and when it permeates a fish's body it affects the flavor of the fish. Allowing a fish to struggle for several hours after it's caught can only have a negative influence on how it will taste.

What's more, attaching fish to a stringer keeps them near the surface, where the water is warmer. You'll see later in this checklist that keeping fish cool is another important rule, and you're breaking that one if you tie fish up near the surface with a short stringer or cord. It's much better to remove fish from that warm surface water, kill them with a sharp rap to the head and keep them on the boat rather than nursing them along in hopes that they'll live through the day.

Allowing fish to die a slow death from suffocation in the bottom of a boat or on the bank is only a little better, in that it shortens the agony, but still it will have a negative effect on the fish's edibility. Not only will fish taste better if you kill them quickly, it's also more humane than dragging them around on a stringer or letting them flop in the dirt until they suffocate.

n Bleed 'em. More and more anglers are discovering that fish taste much better if they're bled as thoroughly as possible. The best way to do that is to use a knife or scissors to cut through a couple of gill arches or to make a deep cut into the soft tissue immediately behind the gills, at the front edge of the gill cover. A fish won't bleed out much if you wait until it's completely dead to make the cut, so most anglers do it immediately before or just after they use their fish clubs. Done properly, this one-two approach will result in a quick death for the fish and much better tasting table fare.

Blood that remains in the flesh is usually the biggest culprit in giving fish that "fishy" taste that can be too strong for some people. The meat is almost always more delicate in flavor if it's been properly bled. You may not notice the difference if you always eat your catch fresh, but store it in the freezer for a month or two and any fish gourmet can tell the difference between fish that's been bled and fish that hasn't, whether it's an ocean-caught Chinook, river-caught Coho, or even a pond-caught yellow perch.

n Keep them cool. Depending on several factors, including the fish's condition when you catch it, salmon may begin to deteriorate within minutes after they die, but keeping them cool can forestall that deterioration for hours, even days. That's how commercial fishing vessels get away with hauling their catch around on ice for long periods of time before returning to the docks. Although it's nice to think that anglers will take better care of the three or four fish they catch for the table than a commercial fisherman takes with the several tons he may have in the hold of his boat, the same principals apply. The cooler you keep your fish, the longer they'll maintain their just-caught quality.

How cool is cool enough? Well, on a 40-degree afternoon you're probably okay taking no precautions to keep a fish cool, because that's probably within a couple of degrees of where your refrigerator is set right now. On a 65-degree day, though, you may have to be more careful, and by the time the mercury climbs to 85, you'd better have a cooler full of ice or several large chunks of block ice in your fish box. The standard changes with the conditions, but remember that keeping a freshly caught fish in the shade is better than letting it lie in the sun, while putting a damp cloth or sheet of burlap over that shaded fish is better still, because as the material wicks dry, it actually produces a cooling effect. Even better than the damp burlap, though, is a layer of shaved ice. You get the idea; the cooler you keep them, the better.

n Clean your catch quickly. Most of us have our preferences about what form we want our salmon in when we get them home, or least when we get them to the kitchen, refrigerator or freezer. Some like their fish gutted and steaked, some like them filleted skin-on, some filleted skin-off, etc. The choice is yours, but whatever you do, do it as soon as circumstances allow. I prefer to fillet most of my salmon, and it's a lot easier for me to fillet a fish when it's still pretty much intact, with guts still in it. So I usually bleed and/or gill my salmon right away and keep them cool until I get to the dock and can find a flat, stable spot to break out the fillet knife. Others like to gill and gut their fish while still on the water, and that's even better. Anything you do to get the "bad stuff" away from the edible stuff as quickly as possible will enhance the final result on the dinner table.

Remember, though, that there may be legal requirements that dictate exactly when it's okay to butcher a salmon and when it isn't. For example, filleting and skinning your catch while still on the water is illegal in most places, because it's difficult or impossible to determine the size and/or species of the fish you've caught by looking at a couple of fillets on ice. Other places have rules against discarding fish heads, entrails and the like. So, know the rules about when and where you can clean your catch, then do it as soon as those rules allow.

n Seal out the air. How you package your catch makes a big difference in table quality, whether it's stored in the refrigerator overnight or kept in the freezer for several months. Squeeze the air from body cavities of gutted fish and wrap fillets as tightly as possible. Zip-seal type plastic bags are good for short-term storage, while glazing, freezing in water or vacuum-sealing are best for freezing more than a couple of weeks. Freezer burn results not from cold temperatures, but from air being in contact with the meat. Most folks these days find the vacuum-sealing system a lot easier and a lot more effective than glazing, but freezing in water is very effective and works fine if you have plenty of room for the larger containers and all that extra ice, a sink for thawing, and the added time it takes to get the ice melted away before the fish can begin to thaw. And remember, when you're thawing a package of vacuum-sealed fish (or frozen herring, by the way), always cut a small slit in the bag at the beginning of the process. There really is, according to scientists, a form of bacteria that forms inside those hermetically sealed bags as the fish begins to thaw, but oxygen flowing in through a little cut in the plastic will keep it from getting a toe-hold.

n Better yet, eat it fresh. While salmon that's been properly cared for, packaged and frozen for short periods of time will provide excellent table fare, nothing compares to salmon that's caught, cleaned and served within a few hours or no more than a day or two of when it was hauled from the water. Fresh fish is the best fish, and that goes double for salmon. I have friends who simply will not freeze fish, preferring to keep only what they can eat fresh and/or share with friends and relatives immediately. One friend will freeze salmon, but has a rule that any of the year's fish still in the freezer by the time the year-end holidays roll around gets thawed, smoked and eaten. I think part of his reasoning is that he can make the argument with his wife that the freezer is empty and blackmouth season is on and springer season is just around the corner, but he insists it's because by January the past summer's fish, though properly cared for, just doesn't compare to fresh-caught salmon, and I agree.

A Westport charter boat limit of summer kings gilled, gutted and ready for the trip home in coolers full of ice.

Rail-hanger cleaning trays provide a handy station for on-the-water salmon cleaning, but be careful, especially when using them on a moving boat. More than one potential meal for a family of five has "escaped" long after it was dead.

An hour spent in the campground vacuum-sealing assembly line at the end of each fishing day pays off with a lot of quality fillets that are ready for the freezer when you get home.