Pressure Bleeding Salmon

[ILHG]

I have seen the benefits of power bleeding your fish. Its amazing what a difference it makes for meat quality. I bonk & bleed on the boat, but even that can not compare to the quality you get when you cut the fins off & pressure bleed the fish. I have been trying to make a set up to do this but haven't been able to make anything work... My thoughts were to connect to my wash down fitting on the boat & then use a valve to control the flow of water. What I am struggling with is what to put on the other end that goes into the fish....

Anyone out there pressure bleed there fish & what do you have rigged up?

 

[Sentinel]

Fished with a guy last fall that pressure bled his fish with no fancy equipment needed. He showed my how and after a bit of coaching and practice I was able to do it. He gave the fish a light bonk and cut a gill, after 5 minutes or so he gutted and gilled the fish. He then reached in the back of the gut cavity with a sharp knife and cut into the spine taking out a small chunk. He then proceeded to take the washdown hose and worked it around until the stream found this opening in the spine and the blood just flowed for a good minute or so out of where the gills had attached. A lot of work but it does result in very blood free fillets.

 

[Newf]

I’ve watched a couple of videos and made a little gizmo to try it but couldn’t figure out where the water is actually pushed in to do the flush. Is it in the centre of the spine or next to it????

 

[Gear'n'beer!]

I have never heard of this before.........tell me more

 

[apprentice]

 

[triplenickel]

I have never heard of this before.........tell me more

Me too, I have no blood left in mine after a 10 minute cut gill bleed in a 5 gallon bucket. In what way is the meat better? If it works this looks like a good application for a cheapo $20 non demand type RV water pump. @ILHG got any operator buddies? Have one grab you a bit of 1/8" stainless Swagelock tubing and adapter to get it to 1/4" NPT and build a stinger or get some 1/8" black plastic airline and a compression fitting from NAPA.

 

[casper5280]

Buddy has a air gun nozzle hooked up to his wash down pump

 

[Stosh]

You don’t need too much pressure, just steady flow. Attached is a picture of the set up I used. The tapered end was from a ball point pen. The rest of the pieces are just garden hose fittings. The valve is important to be able to control the flow.
The Alaska video is very clear.
Stosh

 

[casper5280]

Stosh is correct, don't need tons of pressure. Buddy has the same shut off as Stosh has just ahead of the air gun

 

[ILHG]

Buddy has a air gun nozzle hooked up to his wash down pumpView attachment 46866

Brilliant!

 

[ILHG]

Thanks for all the input. I have some ideas now on what I will do

 

[ILHG]

Me too, I have no blood left in mine after a 10 minute cut gill bleed in a 5 gallon bucket. In what way is the meat better? If it works this looks like a good application for a cheapo $20 non demand type RV water pump. @ILHG got any operator buddies? Have one grab you a bit of 1/8" stainless Swagelock tubing and adapter to get it to 1/4" NPT and build a stinger or get some 1/8" black plastic airline and a compression fitting from NAPA.

It removes all blood away from the fish. The veins around the ribs and fins. It flushes the residual blood from the fish & really dose an amazing job.

Commercial caught and pressure bleed fetches top dollar (so I read). @IronNoggin would probably have the best insight on the subject.

 

[Sentinel]

The air gun on the wd hose is a good idea. Might try that myself.

 

[Andrew P]

I just started doing this...this very week. I had a commercial fisherman customer from California stop in the other day and he walked me through the whole process with pictures and video. It’s actually quite simple...

So, I had a spare 600gph bilge pump and figured I’d give it a try. I wired a plug for it for quick use. It’s basically a portable unit.

Opening day last Thursday was the perfect time to give it a go. I tried it on a 20lb Chinook and I must say it made a huge difference. It was hard to tell when I was actually pumping it out whether it was working or not since it was in the fish hold which quickly turned red. But when i filleted it that’s when you could see a night and day difference. No bloody mess, no blood down the spine or in the stomach veins. And I found remarkable how the meat didn’t smell fishy at all.

Anyways, I recommend trying it. Look up ikejime for more info. Easy steps:

-Catch fish
-Spike the brain to kill (stop stress released hormones), you then are supposed to paralize the fish down the spine through the spike opening...which I haven’t tried yet.
-remove gills (combo of rip and cut)
-locate main artery (which is not super easy)
-put in your pump...I went for about 5 minutes. The pen I used held in well.
-gut it
-get it in ice slurry right away (a few bags of ice and saltwater. I had a separate cooler ready for this.

There are lots of different ways to do it. I’m certainly still learning the process.

 

[Andrew P]

 

[Brian Reiber]

Interesting post but I wonder if I'm missing something here. I watched the youtube video that apprentice posted and it appears to me that pressure bleeding is just complicating something that most of us already do.

When we catch a salmon it is dispatched with the wood shampoo although maybe a brain spike would be worth a try. We gill and gut on the boat and use either a fillet knife or your finger to tear the membrane separating the main artery and the abdominal cavity. The blood can easily be scraped out with the knife spoon or your finger and flushed with your wash down pump. The membranes that line the abdominal cavity prevent any blood from contaminating the meat. The entire process is quite quick.

Please correct me if I am missing something.

 

[Andrew P]

Currently I just put a small cooler with lid off right into the fish hold for the pump to suck the fresh saltwater, which I just fill with a bucket. This way there is no grabi

Interesting post but I wonder if I'm missing something here. I watched the youtube video that apprentice posted and it appears to me that pressure bleeding is just complicating something that most of us already do.

When we catch a salmon it is dispatched with the wood shampoo although maybe a brain spike would be worth a try. We gill and gut on the boat and use either a fillet knife or your finger to tear the membrane separating the main artery and the abdominal cavity. The blood can easily be scraped out with the knife spoon or your finger and flushed with your wash down pump. The membranes that line the abdominal cavity prevent any blood from contaminating the meat. The entire process is quite quick.

Please correct me if I am missing something.

I believe you may be confusing the kidney with the main artery...that may be what you are missing out of this. This process apparently cleans the organs once perfected.

 

[Brian Reiber]

Currently I just put a small cooler with lid off right into the fish hold for the pump to suck the fresh saltwater, which I just fill with a bucket. This way there is no grabi



I believe you may be confusing the kidney with the main artery...that may be what you are missing out of this. This process apparently cleans the organs once perfected.

Andrew,

Right you are. Thanks for that. I just did a quick study on salmonid anotomy (apparently high school biology was a long time ago). I wasn't aware that was the front and rear kidney that I was removing.

I can see how pressurizing the circulatory system would do a good job removing all the blood in a fish. I'm still a little skeptical that it makes that much of a difference but I will certainly give it a try.

cheers,

 

[wildmanyeah]

I have found that bleeding has made a hudge difference with lingcod, have not done it will salmon. With salmon when i get home i gut it, cut off the tail and stick the hose into its spine, blood will start flowing out of the chest cavity.

 

[fishbadger]

I wish I had the time to do this. I give them a head tap and cut the gills aggressively and bleed them. Last night I bonked two and bled them, one bled profusely, and the other just a bit, despite identical treatment. The difference is huge in terms of freezer life and table fare. Half of my fish turn out pretty good and the other half I really have to work the blood out of the meat from those paraspinal vessels when I fillet them. I think some fish are just better clot formers than others.

Again I wish I had the time to do it, when I get a good one and the bite is on, 10 minutes fiddling with this process seems like an eternity. Maybe I need a good deckhand!

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