Commercial Trolling - JULY 4!!!

It's July 4, and we're catching fish - mostly cohos but they pay something.  

Catching the fish is the easy part, processing them is a little more time consuming and more work.

Basically when you're catching fish, it's run the lines, clean fish, run the lines, clean fish, ice down the fish, run the lines, clean fish.  You get the drill.  I can't say it's sophisticated.  It's also good to get a snack and something to drink once in a while - if you're lucky.

This is a nice little haul for two lines, three kings and two cohos.

Here's a better haul.  These are already gilled and cleaned up.  Most of the time, blood and slime is flying around.

The whole intent is to get all the blood out of the fish so it doesn't spoil and ruin the meat.  One of the reasons troll fishing has survived is that it specializes in high quality fresh or fresh frozen fish.  But there is a lot more work per pound of fish compared to other types of fishing like seining, gilnetting, or trawling.

When you clean a fish, first you cut around the gills and pull them out.  This allows the fish to bleed out easily.  Next you slice the fish from anus to between the front bottom fins.  With a little cut on the left and right of the gullet, all the guts come out.  Yep, throw everything back in the sea for the other creatures to get a treat.

After slicing the bloodline along the backbone, all the blood is scraped out of the fish.  Then you take the seawater hose like is on the left, and wash the fish out.  Finally you slightly cut the bones toward the rear of the backbone.  With a little artistic hosemanship, you can wash out the main arteries with sea water.  That's why the water coming out of the fish on the left is bloody.

We place the fish in a big tub of constantly changing sea water and let that wash the fish some more.  Then it's time to get them on ice, one of my least favorite jobs.  You fish them out of the big tub, drop them softly on some ice in the bottom of the hold.  When you get them down in there, you line them up in the bins with bellies and head opening up.  After chopping some ice, you fill the gut cavity and inside the head with ice.  Finally, you throw a small layer of ice over all the fish to get ready for a new layer.

Now get out of the hold and do it all again!