whats the scoop on slush ice

herring rigger

2008-10-27 00:02:13

what are the pro and cons of slushing, and why or why not do it. Can you do it for troll kings or is it for coho and chums. How is your boat set up differently?

Salty

2008-11-04 05:32:53

Here is what I think for better or worse:

Icing is an old fashioned way of keeping salmon chilled for several days until delivery at either a tender or a processing plant. If done correctly, which I attempted for many years, it is a very labor intensive, often grueling task. Quality is almost always compromised due to at least one or a combination of the following:

1. Excessive handling of the fish: a) cleaned fish moved from cleaning trough to rinsing trough or bin; b)fish moved from rinsing trough or bin to slaughter house (ice hold); c)fish lays on ice in slaughter house for 30 minutes to several hours; d) fish is layed in icing bin; e) fish is iced; f) fish is jostled by another layer of fish and ice layed on top of it; g) fish is jostled by fish above and around it moved to the unloading tote; h) fish is dug out of ice and put into unloading tote; i) fish is dumped out of unloading tote onto sorting table; j) fish is sorted and usually "tossed" into a tote onto other fish; k) fish is jostled by other salmon being tossed on top of it.

2. Length of holding before processing or consumption. Sometimes these iced fish are held for 6-8 days before they are frozen, processed, or shipped fresh by the processors.

3. When the bite is on many trollers stack fish on deck until the bite slows and then start the cleaning and icing work. Because icing is such a grueling and time consuming task trollers sometimes delay it during the bite. This often compromises the quality of salmon which should be chilled immediately after dying.

4. Trollers, and almost all salmon fishermen, get paid for the pounds of salmon delivered with very little or no differential in price between a one day delivered fish immediately bled, cleaned, and chilled, and a 7 day old fish cleaned after an hour or so on deck and held several hours in the slaughter house before layer iced.

So, while I still layer ice some dressed salmon due to a variety of factors, I mostly slush ice my dressed salmon. I slush all my round salmon. I slush or layer ice all my salmon in brailer bags conveniently and easily loaded from my cleaning stations with a minimum of handling. The fish go directly from the landing bin or the cleaning trough into the slush or the iced layer. They are gently lifted out of the hold in brailer bags. Handling is quick, ergonomic, efficient, and minimal.

The problem with slushing fish, especially dressed salmon, is that great attention must be paid to making sure the holds and brailer bags are disinfected every trip. Because the slush is usually less salty than the fish the slush tends to leach into the cut flesh over time. This is not a big problem in well chilled, clean, brailer bags and tanks for the first 60 hours or so. After that, and we are allowed to make slush ice deliveries in SE of dressed troll salmon of up to 5 days at most processors, quality is usually compromised. Slushing round dressed troll salmon like pinks and chums for up to 36 hours is no problem and the quality of those fish if they are immediately bled and chilled is amazing.

I have a very good friend who trolled his own vessel for many years with slush tanks. He recently retired and I invited him to come with me some the last couple of years winter fishing and for a bit of chum trolling. We had such a good time and since I had a full crew for this summer he went out with another friend of ours with a very nice ice troller. My friend had advised me that he is "retired" from icing salmon in bins in a hold. He has asked to go with me occasionally if I need him next summer.

Several of my friends have come over and measured my tanks and put in slush tanks of their own. Many trollers out of Sitka are putting insulated totes on deck and slushing into them. If you have a choice I recommend choosing a boat that is either set up with a good slush tank system or is one that you can easily convert. It is the modern way to go for an ergonomic minded, quality conscious troller.

Of course the best way to go is to freeze your salmon at sea. But the question was about slushing.

herring rigger

2008-11-08 05:05:44

Last year I started slushing in totes and I am not convinced I knew what I was doing. I filled the totes about 1/3 with ice and once I was on the grounds I added salt water. The slurry so to speak, was fairly thick I had to push the salmon down to the bottom. Once the totes were full should I have drained the water? I did not, and the fish seemed to be soft, there was still plenty of ice in and around all the fish. Was this normal. These were dressed kings and usally made 3 day trips.

So how bad did I mess up????

Salty

2008-11-09 06:44:56

It sounds like you did just fine. Three days in slush is fine. I have spent lots of hours worrying that my fish wouldn't be cold enough so I finally got one of those temp guages from the co-op and started testing them. That stopped my worrying and I have not checked the temp in years because I know what it is, about 32 degrees, if I maintain a good amount of ice.

The problem with pre-filling the tote with enough ice to last the whole trip or until the tote is full is that it will be too thick at first and perhaps not thick enough at the end. Also, if your fish are right in the slush and they are sloshing around in a fairly large tote they will scale and be bruised.

So, here is what I do. I have fairly small holds, one standard brailer bag size for them, and use standard brailer bags in all my holds. The small bag keeps the fish from moving too much. I think in a standard grey tote you can put two of these bags in them but I don't know for sure. I put enough ice in the bag that will chill about a third to half of the fish I will put in that hold. I put enough water to slush the ice and have about 2 feet of chilled water below the ice. Make sure you use a shovel or a brush or something to mix the ice well after you add water so you don't have chunks or one big chunk. As I add fish I add ice, not for every fish, but after 10 kings or so. (It all depends on the water temp, the size of the fish, how fast they are coming, the temp of the ice, etc. etc.) Anyway, the idea is to have your fish nicely settled, all noses pointing the same way, in your bag in chilled water with plenty of ice to keep it that way.

Critical to and efficient quality minded operation is keeping those holds and bags clean. I use 11 bags for fish when I am plugging my boat. I keep 33 bags on the boat rotating through holding fish, being stored after a chlorine rinse, holding ice, and then back to holding fish. It works great. We don't have to hurry cleaning bags when we unload because we can clean them after we are unloaded, scrubbed down, and iced up ready to go. We just cycle the clean bags in.

If someone would like I could go through the pics and put together a folder of the slush ice and brailer bag operation. I don't have so many pictures of unloading because I am usually busy but I think I have some.~~[attachment=0]~~Dead Fish_001.jpg[/attachment]

Salty

2008-11-09 06:46:34

Now that I look at that picture it looks like that bag is full of fish and that is why that one is on top. Must be chums in there because I hardly ever fill a bag in three days with kings.

mswkickdrum

2008-11-10 08:15:49

Salty,

I'm so glad someone brought this up and you responded. It was the next thing

I wanted to ask your way. My boat has the typical old style hold. It's been

glassed but other then that its original icing style. I think anyone

who has looked at these type of old boats knows what I mean, there are

bin boards that allow you to separate each section into thirds. The middle

third from the outer third on either side that fallows the curve of the hull.

Three sections, the center one with the hatch opening, the forward one

slightly smaller that goes under the deck and house, and the stern one

that is also slightly smaller that goes under the deck to the stern. After

that is the lazarete with fuel/water tanks then troll pit. Anyway, I was

wondering how I could do slushing? The icing thing is probably what I

might have to just go along with but I was really interested if there is

a better way that I can go about keeping the catch cold without doing

major work on the boat for my first season. Don't think one of those

turquoise blue totes would fit down my hatch into the hold, are the grey

ones about half that size? They might fit. A lot of the boats out on the coast

have an insert that drops down into the hatch opening that they

just slush the fish in. The catch being much smaller down here

by number of fish then up in AK. Is it a major deal to "tank" the

hold? or a section of it? If you could post more of the pics

of how you slush the fish in your hold with the bags it would

be great. Thanks again for posting up answers to questions here,

it really means a lot to beginners like myself.

Thanks,

MSW

Salty

2008-11-13 07:36:09

One of the ways guys are going here without doing a lot of work on their boat is to put totes on deck. I don't much like that approach because of the weight on the wood deck, the weight above deck, and the compromising of deck working area.

Another way is to put slush bags that hold both ice and slush in the hold and then, depending on the type of bag, either hoist the whole bag out after pumping the water out of the bag or put a brailer bag inside the slush bag and hoist the brailer bags out. You can use the natural divisions in the hold and the binboards to hold the slush bags in place. Some of the guys have even cut holes in their decks over their side holds so they can lift the bags and fish straight out.

I will try and locate some pictures of my holds. I don't actually have too many. I claim to be busy when we are unloading but the truth is my loads are so small I don't want any pictures to remind me.

fisherman

2010-07-13 06:44:18

been reading threw this forum, love it. lots of idea's. i'm currently using layered ice in my hold. i'm using totes down there right now though cause i've got a wooden boat and i don't fish full time so it helps my catch and ice keep longer. i too have a beach job. but i'm interested in slush ice so i think this thread is great thank you much. one thing? the way my hold is set up i'm not entirely sure i can set up for brailer bags? is there pro's and con's to not haveing bags? just totes and slush ice? then drain the totes to unload?

idea's, comments?

thank you! :)

Salty

2010-08-12 13:45:17

Lifting the fish out with brailer bags eliminates a couple of handling times and ice shoveling. A much better way to go than pitching out of totes.