Salt water slurry

[RUGER]

I have seen on youtube where saltwater fishermen will mix ice and salt water to keep their catch really cold.
I normally just throw a frozen 2 liter bottle of water in my cooler of tap water before I leave the house.
Just wondering, would it be better to add salt to the water to mimic saltwater, and then throw a bag of ice in there?
It's gonna be really hot tomorrow and I thought about trying it.


Anyone ever done this?

 

[mike243]

You ever make home made ice cream? Same method to drop temps

 

[WTM]

as long as you put the fish in a plastic garbage bag it should be fine. the reason they do that for salt water fish is because they cant put them in fresh water. the same applies to fresh water fish in saltwater, theyll dehydrate and the flesh will burn.

salting bait wells can help keep bait alive but its a small amount of salt to water ratio.

i just keep them in the livewell and auto circulate. add a half gallon ice jug about mid day and ice shock kill them at the ramp. the ice shock pulls the blood out of the meat and into the stomach. keep them on ice until time to filet. best way ive found to do it without bleeding them and putting on ice.

 

[BigCityBubba]

A friend of mine has an engel live bait cooler. We went down to Florida in May when it was in the 90's. He was able to keep shrimp alive for 5 days without changing water or adding ice. I was impressed. I have never been able to keep shrimp alive more than about 8 hours.

 

[RUGER]

the same applies to fresh water fish in saltwater, theyll dehydrate and the flesh will burn.

Very interesting.
Did not know that.
Thanks !

 

[megalomaniac]

Don't need salt... but fish in a slurry of ice and water (fresh or salt) is going to cool the fish better than just throwing them on top of several 2l frozen bottles.

I have to be REAL ticky with my fish... if they even have a hint of 'fishiness', my wife won't touch them. As such, mine go into the bottom of crushed ice (which is slowly melting and creating a slurry submerging them) with each catch. If you just pitch them into the cooler on a good day when it's one after the other, the top layer of fish never even touches the ice and gets fishy tasting.

A general good rule of thumb to tell if you are cooling your fish fast enough and keeping them cool is to look at their eyeballs.... if they are crystal clear (6h later or even 24h later), they were cooled and kept cooled properly. If their eyeballs are cloudy, they weren't properly cooled, and may taste fishy.

Saltwater slurry is going to be a couple degrees cooler than freshwater slurry ( 30 deg vs 32 deg), but as long as the entire fish is submerged, there is no difference between the two.

 

[fullstream]

I've also found with saltwater fish if you bleed em it greatly improves the filets when you get back to dock

 

[WTM]

Don't need salt... but fish in a slurry of ice and water (fresh or salt) is going to cool the fish better than just throwing them on top of several 2l frozen bottles.

I have to be REAL ticky with my fish... if they even have a hint of 'fishiness', my wife won't touch them. As such, mine go into the bottom of crushed ice (which is slowly melting and creating a slurry submerging them) with each catch. If you just pitch them into the cooler on a good day when it's one after the other, the top layer of fish never even touches the ice and gets fishy tasting.

A general good rule of thumb to tell if you are cooling your fish fast enough and keeping them cool is to look at their eyeballs.... if they are crystal clear (6h later or even 24h later), they were cooled and kept cooled properly. If their eyeballs are cloudy, they weren't properly cooled, and may taste fishy.

Saltwater slurry is going to be a couple degrees cooler than freshwater slurry ( 30 deg vs 32 deg), but as long as the entire fish is submerged, there is no difference between the two.

good to know. i must be doing it right then. eyeballs are freakishly clear after overnight ice. kind of creepy though. they look alive but froze stiff.

 

[Pilchard]

The salt is important because it lowers the temperature but if you're just out for a day, a freshwater slurry would be fine I suppose.

But…. If you're going to add freshwater to your ice to make a slurry, you better dang sure have a lot of ice. One bucket of sea water to 20 lbs if ice is what I used to do if I remember correctly. My guess is that if you added one bucket of lake water to 20 lbs of ice you'd just have ambient temp water after a short time and no ice.

My advice… don't overthink it. Keep your fish alive or have a way to get them cold and keep them cold. Either way works just fine.

Filleting a slurried fish is a dream compared to a warm fish.

 

[Pilchard]

as long as you put the fish in a plastic garbage bag it should be fine. the reason they do that for salt water fish is because they cant put them in fresh water. the same applies to fresh water fish in saltwater, theyll dehydrate and the flesh will burn.

salting bait wells can help keep bait alive but its a small amount of salt to water ratio.

i just keep them in the livewell and auto circulate. add a half gallon ice jug about mid day and ice shock kill them at the ramp. the ice shock pulls the blood out of the meat and into the stomach. keep them on ice until time to filet. best way ive found to do it without bleeding them and putting on ice.

I've never heard of this. I don't think throwing a freshwater fish in a salt slurry would do any harm.

Many people put saltwater fish in ice without the slurry. The fish are fine. Just not as cold as they could be.

 

[RUGER]

Filleting a slurried fish is a dream compared to a warm fish.

No doubt!
I very rarely clean fish the same day. I like to ice them down and do it the next day. Goes a lot faster!!

 

[Chiflyguy]

Best tasting perch, walleye, or northern pike was from ice fishing.
And my beer stayed cold