Thread: How do you

Originally Posted by 27458

zip lock quart or gallon freezer bags. i like the one's with zippers on them. much easier. fill up with water and then start zipping it closed and squeeze air and excess water out. you don't need a lot of water. just enough to keep them covered. i've kept fish for 2 years and tasted fine to me. friends use the sealers but seems like a lot of effort to me. and added cost for bags. back in the day, my dad used plastic or the old cardboard milk cartons. cut the tops out.

Also, back in the day, growing up on the White River at Newport, AR, we used to have a lot of bass, crappie, catfish, and buffalo. My mom and dad also used half-gallon milk cartons to freeze em. Never had any problems.

Originally Posted by blueball

i believe i read somewhere where feelay dries them and puts them on a cookie sheet in the freezer to firm them up before he vacuum seals his

nope.....dry vacuum sealed

Dry ziplock quart freezer bag. I never keep any longer than a year.

Originally Posted by blueball

i believe i read somewhere where feelay dries them and puts them on a cookie sheet in the freezer to firm them up before he vacuum seals his

If you are going to do this go ahead and baste them with mustard, the corn meal them, then put the on a cookie sheet and freeze individually. Then u can vacuum seal them. If you do this.....you dont have to wait for the filets to thaw before cooking. Drop em in hot grease frozen stiff. Makes a beautiful crispy crust. Only problem is.....Takes quite a bit of freezer space while "flash freezing" them. Doesn't take long to flash freeze them though. But if you do this to a bunch of fish it will get old fast. I just freeze in water now mostly.

this is all good advice. it will be helpful if I ever catch enough to keep.

Vacuum seal

dry them then vac seal they will keep for a while

To keep from pat drying them I put them in a colander then the colander in a bowl and cover with plastic seal over night. The next day they'll be dry enough to vacuum seal without having to use paper towels. By the way, I bought the cheapest vacuum sealer, with the best ratings I could find on Amazon. I've used it several years now and love it. Saves space in the freezer by not using water. I also weigh my fish packages and write date caught and weight on them. This makes it easy to know how much fish to thaw out for a fish fry. I thaw out a half a pound of fish per person. This usually will leave some but very little fish left over.