I am fixing to take a striper out of the freezer to mount. I am doing it inside the house because I do not have a shop yet. My wife would like to know what to use to keep the FISH SMELL to a minimum while I work on it... Please give me some ideas.
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Lemon-scented lysol----thaw the fish in it(dilute per directions on bottle), then wash the fish after skinning,and add it to your preservative solution.
It's still gonna smell like a fish, but that will help.
Good Luck
Dave
I forgot to tell you---dry the fish with a fan--place it at the fish's mouth. your fish should dry within 48 hours and your odor worries should be over.
I`ve done several 20 lb plus stripers...first one or two I couldn`t keep from getting
grease from bleeding thru....then I read here to soak them in colmen
fuel for 24 hours...presto...works like a charm! Just a tip that will
save you alot of headache...be careful with the fuel...
Milton,
Aside from the good information these guys gave you, might I suggest a good air freshener? NO, I'm not being sarcastic or joking. Few commercial air fresheners are worth the price of the can much less the contents. After years of searching, I found the perfect freshener for taxidermy shops (and homes where taxidermists still skin animals on the kitchen table.
Neutron Industries from Phoenix (800) 421-8481 (Ask for Grace and tell her I referred you) sells a freshener that absolutely, positively, without exception ELIMINATES odor.(I have to say, however, that skunk smell overpowers even this stuff.) It does not cover or mak it, it eliminates it. It is sold in several scents including orange (best) green apple, spice, and lemon/lime. It comes in a non-aerosol can, either 16 or 8 fluid ounces. The 16 oz can is about $20, but 2 spritzes will clear an 8x10 room in seconds. It does the job of 10 cans of Lysol so it's cheaper in price.
One warning, however, is that you'll find your can "borrowed" for other unpleasant odors around the house. It is USDA approved for use in poulty and meat plants, and it works like nothing you've ever used before.
I personally like to skin any fish way before it has completely thawed. As long as it is thawed enough to cause a slight dent in the side when pressing my finger into it it is plenty thawed. I don,t seem to get much smell this way and the skin comes off cleaner. If you wait until it is totally thawed you will have a much bigger mess as well as smell.
Get down and remove as much of the otolith as possible, this can be a lot of greasy bone, remove all of the meat from inside the lower jaws. you may even want to remove the tongue and replace it, cut way up into and between the gill until you find the boney gill structure, cleam between each of them, You could even remove the meat behind the brachestachial rays. When done this way you should not have much if any grease bleed. Hope this has helped. John C