I have been doing fish for some time now and normaly get to my projects rather quickly. But i now have a smallmouth bass that a friend gave me to do, and it has been in the freezer for a while. how long will they keep? and are fish salvagable if they are in the freezer to long?
Smallmouth hold up pretty good in the freezer but if it is frezzer burned just skin and soak should be ok. The biggest problem you will have are the fins. They might not fare as well as the rest of the fish but it is mountable.
Elmer is right on when it comes to frost bitten fish. You may want to throw in some ultra soft when you thawing it out. I've done fish that were in a freezer over 3 years. I've also heard longer.
What you might try Bill on dried out, freezer burnt fins that alot of people don't know about is to mix a paste of Dr. Scholl"s foot powder with water and gentley rub it in the damaged fins. Let it set overnite in the refridgerator wrapped in a wet towel. The fins though still split, will turn out soft and easy to work with.They smell good too!
I recently molded a 110 lbs. fish that was in the freezer since 1990. Boy did it smell when it thawed, the skin separated from the flesh in certain areas. But the final piece turned out alright.
The fish was in the customers freezer for the last 11 years not mine.
I just pulled out a brook trout from my freezer after 14 years and mounted it up and took it to the world show.No problem, it was unwrapped and I threw it around for 14 years never really expecting to mount it.
That guy seemed to do a good fish but claimed that after 2 or 3 years a fish should be tossed out. We several people told him about their cases, he claimed it was just accidents that the fish even mounted. Where do people get such new fish to mount? Everything I seem to get is freezer burned and darn near dried.
I heard the toss them after two or three years bit too.
I had to fight to keep from laughing. I can't count the number
of fish my customers have brought in that have been in their
freezers for 5 to 10 years. Haven't lost one yet, replaced a fin or two, but fish mount up just fine.
7 years ago I caught a 1 1/2lb. green sunfish and forgot about it in the freezer until last month when I was looking for some lasagna and it turned out preety good.