Guts in the water

[SnoSldr]

Hi,

A couple of my friends and I have been arguing over whether it is legal to throw guts in the drink. I know the book says no carcass's. What about blood n guts? Say you are out on a boat fishin for the day. You catch one right off the bat...bleed it? gut it? hang it on a rope? put it on ice??? I know I have seen plenty of blood spills on the bank...I would rather they did it in the water so it would wash clean.

What do you do???

I posted a ? about this in another thread but I didn't want it to get buried in a OT thread.

Thanx,
Sno

[MasterCaster]

Well as for what I do personally...
I catch the fish and try and cleean it within 10 or 15 minutes after bleeding it.
I almost always clean it right where i caught it,
in the water and feed the guts to the gulls or whatever. I have never had anyone on the rivers complain to me or anything including the officer checking tags just up the river bank.
I think as long as its not at a ramp or congested place there is no problem with it. If its just a here and there kind of thing then i dont think there is anything wrong with it. Just dont clean 10 fish in one spot and leave the guts in a pile or just off the bank where everyone can see them. Throw em out in the current and let the river dispose of it for you just as it would with the dead fish had it spawned out.

Just my 2 cents
Jon :smile: :grin: :smile:

[SnoSldr]

This is what I like to hear!!

[fishchaser]

I know that the bioligist would rather you throw the carcass into the water. They have found that the smolts use this for food during their first few months of life. it gives them the same immutities that mothers milk gives children. It makes them invulnerable to certian dieses. So I would throw the whole thing into the water, but the State of Oregon is still behind on the times Washington now lets you throw the carcasses in the water along with the guts and blood.

[ssteelheadsteve]

What do the RULES say ?
Logic and Law have nothing in Common.

[fishnagain]

I usually bleed my fish and take them home to filet.Then I'll store the carcasses in the bottom shelf of my freezer until its full and then dump them in the river.
I'm not sure if it's against the law but the state spent lots of money using a helicopter to dump coho carcasses on the upper sandy river last fall.
Also I was watching the discovery channel last night and they had a show about the life cycle of salmon in an alaska river and they explained about the millions of dead salmon help the whole eco system forest,birds,animals and smolts so if it is illegal it shouldn't be.
(it should be the Law)it's better than dumping them in your trash can.

Tonyz! You don't really waste fish like that do you? Salmon should be canned and not frozen, unless it is going to be consumed within a month or two. Either way don't waste food.

The guts should always go back no matter
what the law says. :smile:

[fishnagain]

Keta, I freeze the carcasses so they don't rot before I get a chance to dump them.as for my fillets I vaccuum seal them and that works well canning takes up to much time and can be messy,besides fish doesn't last long enough around my house to go to waste. my wife and I even eat all the little trimming's off the fish after I filet it usually frying them up with some butter and spices hmmmmmmm!

I agree with you no matter what the LAW say's.

[FearNoEvil]

Keta...

Are you on drugs!? who wants to eat canned salmon ALL the time, sure some of its good for sandwiches and soups.. but come on.. just vacuum back the stuff and its good for about a year if not longer. I catch a bunch of Coho v-pack them and eat off that for a year, and start the thing over next year.. I'd have to say the v-packed salmon tastes pretty damn good.

SO I don't see how that is "wasting salmon"

Casey....

Much better :grin: :smile:

The carcasses make good crab or crawdad bait.

If we couldn't eat it right away it always got lightly smoked and canned. Where I'm living now any salmon that I bring home gets consumed faster than I can get it into the smoker or jars. I do put up a case of kokanee every year. :smile:

Yes I am on drugs, right now. The doctor gave me vicoden for pain but it doesn't help much.

I smoke unbrined salmon at 80 degrees or less for two hours then put it in jars with 1 tbs. salt
and 1 tbs. peanut oil. Then into the pressure cooker for 90 minutes at 10 psi. Much better than freezer burnt boards. No, vacuum packing does help increase storage time but if it is not fresh I would rather smoke and can it.
It makes great snacks on a cracker.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

link

[Pitch Pocket]

I take the guts home, along with the carcass. Freeze the guts in a ziplock, freeze the carcass flat in a plastic bag. Chop the frozen carcass with a sharp hatchet into bait cage sizes, chop the guts into Scotty's bait can sizes, back in the freezer and use it for crab bait. After you catch a limit of crabs with the guts and carcass, then throw them in the river.

[fishnagain]

I prefer to use shad as crab bait i used both on a bay with lots of pressure and the shad seemed to do better than the salmon did,also the seals dont mess with the traps as much as they do with salmon. I have had seals at yaquina follow me dropping my traps for an hour and a half until he figured he wasn't getting any. As soon as I started duimping the carcasses when I was done he was right there to pick them off.

[STGRule]

Keta: Be careful with your canning. Your supposed to process fish for 100 minutes, not 90.

[ 04-07-2002, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: STGRule ]

[M W Sheller]

'sounds like some of you folks are taking fish for the eggs only. Or do I misunderstand????? That aint cool!
As for what to do with the gut pile, well if I gut a fish where dogs aren't likely to come around, the guts go on the bank, not in the water, as state reg.s requier. If i gut a fish at a landing, or some other place that is easeally a accessable to dogs, the guts go in the water(to prevent salmon poisening). Most summer-run steelhead I kill are at a time and place where vultures will jump a gut-pile as soon as I am a safe distance away. :grin: :grin:

M W Sheller
It's semantics not waste. To me a carcass is the body with the hide and guts removed. Some
of the posters here are calling the head and bones the carcass. It had me fooled too as you can see in my first post.

And the guts should always go back into the water, no mater what the law says.

[pirk fan]

What's in a name. Here we think of the whole fish as a carcass but have no name for the remains after fillets are removes. In Australia, they call this remainder the frame, which does seem to describe what's left

[fishnagain]

Yes, by carcass I mean frame I guess. I was wondering where the fish waste thing was coming from.That's what we have allways called it.

The 100 minutes came about because everyone is afraid of getting sued. I have old fish canning directions that have even less time. 90 min has worked for me for 25 years and I haven't had anyone die on me yet (35 to 60, 8-16 pound sockeye a year for 15 years). If you want to be on the safe side go 100 min. If your pressure drops (I like mine to stay around 15 psi) below 10 psi start over and do another 90 min, no mater how long it's been cooking. Always error on the over cook side. Last year at the Klamath County Fair I took "Best of Show" for my fish!

[Joe Schwab]

State regs do NOT require throwing gut piles on the bank! Just where is a place you would throw fish guts where dogs are not likely to be?
Throwing fish carcasses in the water is an old outdated law that is very seldom enforced and then only when some guy cleans 5-10 fish at a boat ramp and leaves a mess. Put the stuff in deep water where it can drift away and be eaten by critters.
OFDW should have authority over DEQ. DEQ is an out of control agency with stupid rules and one of them is the requirement that ODFW get a permit to put carcasses in the river to replenish the food supply. Next DEQ will be requiring fish hatcheries to run the pond water thru a water treatment plant because hatchery fish $#!^.
Wait a minute, they already do!
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