How to Care for Fish Meat in Summer Heat

When you’re spending a hot day on the water, it’s surprising how fast the fish you’re trying to bring home can go bad, especially if you’re fishing in warmer water. In average temperatures, unchilled or unpreserved fish meat can spoil within 2 hours of the fish being caught and in as little as 1 hour on a 90-degree or hotter day or when it’s kept in 75-degree water or warmer.

Since most of us fish for longer than an hour or two during the summer, knowing how to preserve fish meat for an entire day is vital for ensuring you’re bringing home the freshest fish possible for you and your family and friends.

Keeping fish alive is the first and most obvious way to ensure your fish remain fresh for the dinner table. Yet, this is often easier said than done. In the heat of the summer, fish that are improperly kept can die surprisingly quickly and, as previously mentioned, spoil even faster. And, while there are several ways to keep your fish alive for the duration of the fishing day, the fact is that some methods work better than others.

Stringers are the easiest and most efficient way to keep the fish you intend to bring home alive and well while you try to catch your limit. However, some stringer designs work better than others, with bad design actually killing the fish while they’re on the line. To prevent this, you’ll want to select a stringer for your fish that makes sure they keep on kicking.

For me, the best stringers are chain stringers designed with individual snaps for each fish. These clips keep the fish separate from one another, preventing overcrowding and giving them plenty of room to swim and breathe. One trick to ensure the fish on a chain stringer live longer is to punch the point of each clip through the thin skin on the fish’s lower jaw before snapping it together, rather than threading the clip through the fish’s gills. This will prevent the clip from obstructing the fish’s breathing and ensure they get plenty of air throughout the day.

Other ways to keep fish alive include a bucket, fish basket, or live well. All three of these fish storage devices can keep your fish alive, but a fish basket usually works best. Keeping fish in a fish basket that you then lower into the water will ensure a constant supply of oxygen from the lake or river will flow into the captive fish’s gills. In buckets and live wells filled with water, the air can and will eventually run out and cause your fish to suffocate. You can prevent this by either refreshing the water every couple of hours or by adding an electric or battery-powered aerator to the water to keep the fish lively.

Putting fish on ice in a cooler is probably the simplest and most common way to ensure that your fish stay fresh for the entire day. However, storing fish on ice can be a tricky thing. If you don’t handle both the fish and the ice in your cooler properly throughout the entire day, things are almost certain to go bad.

When storing fish on ice, the first and most important thing you need to consider is your cooler. Generally, you’re going to want to store fish in a higher-end insulated cooler with a lid that can be completely sealed. This will prevent your ice from melting too quickly and keep you from having to clean that gross, slimy ooze of water and fish goo out of the bottom of your cooler at the end of the day.

In addition to the cooler quality, you’ll also want to make sure you add enough ice so that you can pack the fish beneath a layer of frozen water on both sides. I recommend lining the bottom of the cooler with a layer of frozen water bottles or cold packs and then pouring a five- to six-inch layer of ice on top. This will help keep the temperature unanimously chilled throughout the entire cooler and give you plenty of room to add both more ice and more fish to your pile.

Consider how big a cooler you’ll need for what you’re targeting as well. If you’re after a pile of panfish, a 20-quart cooler should do. Think about a backpack cooler if you’re hiking to catch brookies in small mountain streams. If you’re going out for multiple days or targeting bigger fish like pike or lake trout, you’re going to want a cooler that can handle more weight. An 80-quart cooler (with wheels) will make it easier on your back when you’re hauling your harvest home.

Before putting a fish on ice, you’ll want to make sure it’s properly prepared by killing, bleeding, and gutting it, especially when you’re fishing in warmer water. This will prevent bacteria from building up in the fish’s flesh and entrails, which can spoil the meat. To do this, you’ll want to give the fish a sharp tap on the head with a priest club or even the handle of a fillet knife. Then make a quick cut across the fish’s throat and into its gills while holding the fish in the water so that it can bleed out.

Once no more blood is coming from the fish, slit the fish from the vent up to the cut you made in the throat and remove the fish’s entrails and gills, rinsing as you go until the fish’s cavity is completely clean. When this is done, lay the fish on ice in the cooler and pack the now-empty body cavity with more ice until the fish is completely covered. Fish packed in ice like this will stay fresh for days, even in the hottest weather, making it easy to fillet or even cook them whole when you get home.

Packing fish fillets in salt is a traditional and simple way to preserve your fish meat that ancient cultures have been practicing for years. It’s a great alternative method for keeping fish fresh when you’re in the backcountry. However, as simple as it seems, you want to make sure you’re both handling the meat and packing it in salt properly to ensure your fish won’t rot.

The first thing you need to do when keeping fish in salt is to clean them. A whole, gutted fish generally has too much surface area to salt down properly, so you’ll want to both scale and fillet your fish before storage. When I salt down fish, I generally leave the scaled skin on my fillets to prevent the meat from drying out too much in its salty covering.

Once you’ve filleted and scaled your fish, set it aside and then pour or shake a thick layer of salt in the bottom of a watertight container. Add your fillets to the salty layer, flipping them a couple of times to ensure they’re completely covered, and then pour another layer of salt over the top of them before sealing them inside. The salt will both inhibit the growth of bacteria around your fish and leech any excess moisture from the fillets, just like it does in cured meats, allowing them to stay fresh even in warm temperatures.

Before you eat the salted fish, rinse it thoroughly in freshwater. This will both return moisture to the fillet, making it juicy and flakey as you cook it, and of course prevent the flesh from tasting like you just gargled with a mouthful of the Red Sea.

Few summer activities are more rewarding or delicious than coming home from a day floating around the lake or hiking along the river and cooking up some freshly caught fish.

Whether it’s a mess of fried catfish, a fancy baked trout, or just a couple of panfish tossed on the grill, there’s just something innately satisfying about catching, cleaning, and cooking fish on a warm summer night. It’s the type of activity that speaks to both the rugged outdoor provider and the happy inner child within us all, reminding us of our place in the world and the simple pleasures that can come from a hook and line. And when you know how to keep fish fresh in the heat, it’s a simple pleasure you can feel all summer long.