Vacuum Packing Smelt

Finn-icky · 03-11-2001, 05:52 PM

Do any of you out there have any idea's pro or con about vacuum packing smelt, or should I say fresh smelt? I never smelt a smelt that smelt like that smelt. Run with it boys & girls.

Fishin Magician · 03-11-2001, 06:00 PM

My dad lays them out on cookie sheets and freezes them for an hour or so, then vacuum seals them. I cut a gatorade bottle down to make a funnel, put in 24 smelt, also known as smelt, which look a lot like smelt and smelt like smelt..........then vacuum smelt 'em .Works really well

~John

[This message has been edited by Fishin Magician (edited 03-11-2001).]

fisheromen · 03-11-2001, 07:05 PM

Just fill the ziplock with smelt, then with water, seal 90% of the zip and then smash the bag to get most of the water out, finishing the seal right at the end. Who needs vacuum pack?

boater · 03-11-2001, 07:20 PM

my girlfriend and i were going to vacume seal some, but we didnt get any, funny thing is, my fingers still smelled like fish.

Phunybonz · 03-11-2001, 09:37 PM

Learned this from a previous post. I have the seal a meal and had problems with smelt juice. Bags wouldn't seal, so I froze them for a couple hours. Still had a problem with the frost and no seal on 50% of the bags. Didn't find that out for a couple months, burnt...used em anyway and still got bit. Soooo, This year I just jammed a few smeltz in the bag,left 3" down from top of bag. Before I sealed them, I placed a folded paper towel on top of the smeltz. I watched in utter amazement as the towel sucked up the juice and the smeltz are sealed. Just in case, I backed the bag out 1/2" or so and put another seal in front of the seal.

Finn-icky · 03-12-2001, 03:35 AM

Thanks for the ideas. I tried the paper towel idea and it worked great. By the way fisheromen, sounds like you haven't used the vacuum packers before. I've had mine for over ten years, and the only way I will be without one is if mine breaks and new ones aren't available. You should consider the purchase of one. Worth every cent.

Pilar · 03-12-2001, 07:41 AM

I tried a new trick this year. We used 1/2 gallon ziplocks. Put 1-1/2 lbs in all neat and roll it up. Stack these in your freezer overnight. Th next day you use the vacuum sealer with as short a bag as possible. 8" long was working for me. Just peel the frozen lump out of the ziplock, slide it into the sealer bag, vacuum it and seal.

No juice to worry about they all sealed!! If you ever ask me what I'm using for bait on the river, I say Smelt. But I don't tell you about the put up the same day as caught, vacuum sealed, dipped it myself, etc, etc, etc.......

We are very successful sturgeon fishermen and attention to details is the reason why.

The bend is your friend!!

Irontrader · 03-12-2001, 08:47 AM

Saturday we vacuum sealed about 45 lbs of fresh dipped smelt from the Cowlitz.

We just took the smelt fresh out of the buckets, and put them directly into the vacuum seal bags.

We sealed some without using a paper towel and on the majority we put a paper towel in the bag first. The paper towel really helps in cutting down on the amount of juice that gets sucked into the machine.

The nicest looking packs were the ones using the gallon size bags. I'd put a row of smelt with heads at the bottom of the bag, followed by an partially overlapping row with their heads facing the opposite direction. I didn't count, but guess these bags each have about 24 smelt in each one.

Hopefully, we'll get to try out our bait next weekend!

Oh.... we did save out some smelt that we had for lunch on Saturday. I've now had my fill of smelt and can't see myself eating bait anymore.