Before Filleting Your Fish...

[kjackson]

Never heard of the otolith thing as jewelry…I understand drum have large ones. The only thing I've seen deckhands do in Alaska is take the cheeks off the halibut…mmmm, halibut cheeks.

[Feathers and Fins]

If they were keeping them it was probably for scientific research would be my guess, I know when they were doing the work in Cali in breeding of the seabass the scientist were all over them. I just liked them for jewelry and inlays in knives and rod handles when I was building them.

[Justin Spencer]

We pulled them to age the fish, cut a cross section and they have rings like trees. Love the idea of inlaying them in knives and rods.

[Feathers and Fins]

They are easier to work with than mother of pearl and if you ground them up the powder still had the shine.

[jay bird]

I bury mine in ice overnight and clean em the next day. So much easier to do a near-perfect job of filleting when they are already dead and the meat is cold and firm.

Second this did this with a batch of white bass really easy to clean and a lot of the blood was pushed out of the meat.

[Quillback]

Second this did this with a batch of white bass really easy to clean and a lot of the blood was pushed out of the meat.

Yep, you sure as heck don't want to clean a live white bass. I toss them in the cooler immediately if I intend to keep them. They also taste better if iced immediately.

[1969Larson]

Just curious, is the pretext of this thread and some of the posts here that cleaning fish without giving them a merciful or quick death is unkind or not sportsmanlike?

[Ham]

Intellectually, I certainly understand that their pain does not carry with it the emotional context that a human's or other higher animal's pain does and I don't worry about a tick's feelings when I mash them. It seems to me to be largely unnecessary to clean them while they struggle and it bums me out for me to do it. I know that lots of people clean their fish straight out of the livewell ; I can't change that and I try not to worry about things I can't change. I don't know if I could argue that it is unethical for you to do so, but I don't think anyone could argue that it is kind to run a knife through them while the are alive and aware.

I fully acknowledge I'm tender hearted about stuff sometimes, but me putting my fish on ice before I fillet them shouldn't make anyone else lose sleep either.

[Quillback]

Just curious, is the pretext of this thread and some of the posts here that cleaning fish without giving them a merciful or quick death is unkind or not sportsmanlike?

I think the OP was some kind of troll, PETA type sympathizer maybe. Maybe he'll come back and explain.

[Feathers and Fins]

I think the OP was some kind of troll, PETA type sympathizer maybe. Maybe he'll come back and explain.

So I guess posting a picture of Ozzy biting a bats head off would be bad lol.