Frankenfish

[Crapbie]

Ok, my wife has never cleaned fish before so she wanted me to show her how so I took her outside and put a holey towel down and proceed to show her how to gut it and scale it, well half way threw scaling it this fish has a huge long 7-10 second seizure. It was a good size crappie, pnly 12.5" long but 10" gerth, anyway this thing was strong and my wife nearly had a heart attack, I had sworn to her that even if it moved it was already dead but ofcourse it was not dead. When I uncovered its eyes which had been covered by the towel, frankenfish started flapping strong as hell again. Nothing like seeing a gutted, scaled fish still flapping with my wife crying trying not to look at it. I would see its fin start going up and would have to make her look away because I knew what was coming.

Any ideas how I can be sure a fish is dead before giving it to my wife? Should I just get a cleaver and chop off its head?

Also I caught 2 keepers today and both females, both in like 9-10 feet of water. They both had eggs, are they pre-spawn then? Staging?

[Roberta]

I put them in ice water (small bag of ice + gallon of water) when we transfer from the live well to the cooler . It stuns them, maybe kills them (we've been over this on this forum before) but at any rate, they have the appearance of death. This works better in summer than in cooler weather.

A way to quickly bleed out a fish it to cut the flesh under the gill plates that connects the underside to the lower jaw. That's how I kill the trout I intend to clean since I leave trout whole.
A quick plunge of a knife right behind the gillplates at the midline will usually hit the artery coming from the heart , but that will fill the body cavity with blood. - Roberta

[Barnacle Bill]

Why do I have the feeling you will be cleaning all the fish for now on? LOL

[Crapbie]

The first seizure was so bad I could not deny it was alive so I said "That was just him swimming off to fishy heven" it helped a bit but when I uncovered its eyes and it started seizing she could not hold back anymore and started crying. The messed up thing is shes the one that always wants to keep the fish, but she always gives them away when we get home, today I found out why.

Thanks for the help though. Now I know not to just leave them sitting in ice and water, cut a vein to is obviously what I need to do before I let it sit. Seems like the larger fish live longer out of water, maybe they have more blood so have more oxygen in there body when they are pulled up?

I wonder how long crappie can be kept out of water and still be released sucessfully afterwards.

[DENNIS BOWERS]

CRAPBIE, I PUT ALL MINE ON ICE FOR AT LEAST A COUPLA HOURS[sometimes till next day].IT HELPS IN THE CLEANING AS IT FIRMS THEM UP WHICH MAKES THEM ALOT EASIER!! ALSO IT WILL PUT THEM PERMANTLY TO SLEEP,MAYBE YOU CAN GET HER TO TRY AGAIN THAT WAY????GOOD LUCK & GOOD FISHIN TO YA!!!!DENNIS

[unknown 5]

His you wife ever cooked froglegs?

[GABoy]

Why do I have the feeling you will be cleaning all the fish for now on? LOL

Ha ha..isn't that the truth...nice attempt to get her help, but I think you will be alone from now on too!!

[GABoy]

CRAPBIE, I PUT ALL MINE ON ICE FOR AT LEAST A COUPLA HOURS[sometimes till next day].IT HELPS IN THE CLEANING AS IT FIRMS THEM UP WHICH MAKES THEM ALOT EASIER!! ALSO IT WILL PUT THEM PERMANTLY TO SLEEP,MAYBE YOU CAN GET HER TO TRY AGAIN THAT WAY????GOOD LUCK & GOOD FISHIN TO YA!!!!DENNIS

I do the same thing, I transfer them to ice for at least a couple hours first, most often overnight before I even clean them. Makes it MUCH easier to clean them.....