The last 2 trips to the Southside had big bites but no fish landed. I went out last week to see if I could land what had been cutting and busting me off. It was the calmest of all the previous trips and the fish really didn’t want to bite for the first few hours. Nothing on damashi, nothing hooked on the dead opelu, just a lot of small boats coming way to close to me and spooking the already spooked fish.
Finally my bait got yanked hard, a bit of line pulled, and the opelu was gone. I dropped another opelu down, kept the drag Avet SX Raptor’s lever drag loose and put on the clicker. Immediate hard tugs, then hookup! A very jerky, spastic battle ensued which led me to believe it was an uku down there, and sure enough a nice one came to color. It had swallowed the rear titanium-wired stinger hook, and was already bleeding.
It’s been 6 months since I caught a good sized uku, so I was stoked to get one and break my bolo streak. I spiked it in the brain, bled it over the side, and put it on ice cubes and Arctic Ice in the fish bag. The rest of my subsequent baits were stolen on this too calm day so I eventually went in.
Since I had “cooked” some recent fish in the fish bag before putting them on ice, I iced the fish well on the short drive home, and buried the 6lb fish overnight in 40lb of ice cubes and Arctic Ice.
The next day the cooler was a chilly 34 degrees. The bottom shelf of my fridge, in comparison, is about 37 degrees because we open the door too often.
The fish was very fresh and drained of blood when I cleaned it more than 24 hrs after capture. Icing it firmed up the flesh so it was easy to filet and I decided to leave the rib meat on since the fish had so little bloody areas. It was a male in pre-spawn with those waxy fatty pieces in the stomach cavity, which translates to an oilier (in a good way) taste.
My neighbor loved the light, delicate flavor of the uku sashimi, in comparison to the kawakawa he had tried earlier, and fried the uku bones with salt, smoked paprika, garlic and corn starch. Man that looks good yeah?
It’s humbug to have enough ice to properly cool down a fish but totally worth it when you produce optimal tasting filets with a long shelf life.
Great knowledge sharing Scott. Saw a great article in New Zealand on “wiring” the CNS (spinal cord) of a freshly caught fish to make the meat tender/soft prior to placing on ice. Do folks here do that?
Thanks much,
Chris
Hey Chris,
Some boaters do the Japanese method of “iki jime” to sever the spinal cord so the nerves stop twitching in the fish and spoiling the meat. That’s too hard for me to do on a kayak so I try to stop the brain with a spike and quickly bleed the fish while its heart is still beating. Bleeding the fish makes a HUGE difference in how fishy the fish is gonna taste, and with less blood in the filet, it will keep much longer.
-scott
Great info, Mahalo, had to look it up, too much of a rookie ?. https://www.hawaii-seafood.org/wild-hawaii-fish/blue-green-snapper-uku/
Hi Paul,
That’s a really nice description of uku, or blue-green snapper. It’s funny that I catch my bigger uku in the winter, and they are fatter, thus oilier. Such a versatile, tasty fish.
-scott