Let's talk Fish Processing

[ful-rac]

Since Makobob just brought up the Vacmaster chamber sealer, I wanted to make a post about the steps I take to process the fish that I catch using the Vacmaster, specifically the VP215. As fisherman and or sportsman I believe it is our duty to preserve and utilize as much of the fish we catch as possible, the vacmaster allows us to do that to the extreme. I want to say again what an awesome machine this is, and if your in the market for a vacuum sealer, consider the Vacmaster VP215. It's not cheap, but for what is and what it does, it's a great value. You can basically seal your fish and have it last for years if need be. Is it better than the food saver...? YES!


Here are the steps:
I lay the table out put a gunny sack or towel down to keep the fish from sliding around. Then I rinse as much crap and slime off the fish as possible.



With a super sharp knife it's time to slab this sucker out! This is a critical part in the process, make sure to take your time on this, it's not a race. If you hack the hell out of it...your end product will not only be less it will look like crap.







Now it's time to divide your fish, I like to divide them into sections. Tail section, loin section, and belly section. Then I like to cut them into smaller meal size pieces, then skin them.





Hopefully I had time to label some bags ahead of time...



Now it's time bring my fish into the kitchen and trim as much of the dark meat/bloodline I can off the fish. You really don't want to seal the bloodline together with the fish, you will most likely have a nasty result.



Now for the fun part, it's time to bag and seal with the VP215!









Behold the Mountain of MEAT!



Let's not forget to send in the head to HUBBS! I took mine to the local DFG office here in Los Alamitos, they accept heads as well. The DFG scientist who took the head was really excited to see it.