Salmon Quality (was: plastic kolstrand overhaul)

Salty

2008-10-13 17:32:14

Groundhog,

Here is the deal on Gurdy grease. We all should be using food grade lubricant on our gurdies and haulers or anything else on the deck where the lubricant can weep onto the surfaces the food (fish) come in contact with. I started using food grade grease about the time I got my Easthope gurdies in 1988. For years I had to go to the processing plants to get it because they did not carry it at the fuel docks. Fortunately Petro Marine started carrying it a few years ago and now I get it there. Unfortunately very few trollers have even thought about the fact that in almost all cases the water going over the gurdies is washing across the same deck where they are landing or stacking fish. When I bring it up I often get blank stares. There it is, food grade grease.

I just reread this and realize it sounds kind of uppity. I don't mean it that way but I have been fighting for salmon quality for many years, including serving on Salmon Quality task forces for the State. It amazes me how absolutely ignorant we are in this industry about Salmon Quality. Just look at the most recent issue of National fisherman where on the back page there is a picture of beautiful sockeye salmon laying in a gillnet in the sun in the mud and sand on the beach. What is National Fisherman thinking? What are those fishermen thinking?

On this site I recently saw a picture of a bunch of coho on a troll deck. Perhaps I didn't see it correctly but it looked to me like there were 40 or 50 fish on deck, uncleaned, no evidence of bleeding. When I run through a line for a bunch of fish there is a total bloody mess back there and if there are a dozen or so fish on that line then they get cleaned before the next line is run. Of course in my operation it takes hours to get a dozen fish usually so maybe I am just jealous.

Salty

2008-10-13 17:46:26

Groundhog,

Here is another thought on Salmon Quality. I handtrolled for many years without a cockpit. I landed the fish right on the deck where I was standing. Not such a good idea. I see guys with a special landing box, good idea. But, what I am thinking about is the workshop I just went to on ergonomics in industry and ideas for saving our bodies from stress and injury. And I am thinking about how it pains me to watch guys landing fish across their bodies up and over the back end of the boat, across the cockpit, and finally into a landing checker in the middle of the boat. I have partners who land fish that way. I see lots of trollers with the gurdies, leadholders, etc. right next to the rail so it is impossible to slip the salmon gently over the rail into the checker.

So, please think about two things when you mount your gurdies.

1. Your body; and,

2. The quality of the fish you will deliver.

I have talked to lots of salmon processing workers about bruising in troll salmon and most recently with a friend of mine with a small processing plant who was just disgusted with the bruising in the high priced troll coho he bought. Please do not sling those salmon aboard. Conk them in the water and then gently slip them aboard over the rail. It will be good for your body and for the fish quality.

The truth is though that we slip chums and pinks aboard without conking them in the water. But, we conk them immediately on the deck and stick them with the gaff before we remove the hook and then stick them again with a knife before we move them to the slush tanks.

Jon

2008-10-20 23:48:06

Perhaps I didn't see it correctly but it looked to me like there were 40 or 50 fish on deck, uncleaned, no evidence of bleeding.

That sounded familiar, probably this picture?:

~~[img="~~http://www.forked.net/~apex/fishing2007/angie.jpg" alt=""]

Those coho's are bled (immediately after each line is run) and kept rinsed and cool with water until the first available time to clean them -- which can be awhile on a busy day, for sure. I don't know anyone who stops running their gear when there's a hot bite going on so they can clean fish -- i mean you'd be losing money and you don't get paid more for higher quality fish anyhow. It's not a perfect system, but I wouldn't fish for free just so someone else can have a perfect fish to eat. I think trolling is so much better than other fisheries in regards to quality. Longline fish will sit on deck for 5,6, maybe 10 hours or more because they're caught all at once and you don't stop hauling to clean. Then we have net-caught fish which are just disgusting in my opinion -- they don't even get cleaned or bled, they're dumped on deck, dumped in the hold, and sucked out with a hose.

And if you want to talk about bruising -- Where's the 'tender'ness in the fish tenders??? I cringe at how they treat the fish that we carefully landed and cared for. Throwing them, dropping them, picking them up by the tail, barely icing them... and the plant workers are just as bad. They get paid by the hour, they don't care about quality.

I guess it all comes down to doing the best you can and taking pride in having nice fish for our own satisfaction and knowing we did a good job. I don't know how the people who treat the fish like crap feel about it. I guess they never think about it or they don't care at all.

There are definitely quality concerns -- how about the fact that we all touch and handle lead (a very poisonous substance) right where we land the fish that our customers eat?

yak2you2

2008-10-21 07:56:21

Oh man,,, I should just stay out of this one, but unfortunately I do have a few thoughts about the subject we've drifted off to. First, let me say that there is two very important points here, and they are both very valid. 1) in the late 70's a guy died of botchulism from eating canned salmon. Granted in was an obvious defect in the canning process that caused it, but the effects were the same. No one cared that it was the cannery's fault, the entire industry suffered a devestating down turn in consumtion because of the fear factor it caused, and a lot of people lost their livelyhoods before it was forgotten. I was a crewmen kid throught it, and it wasn't easy.Every year I bet someone somewhere dies of defective canning in the canned vegetable industry but for some reason, people love to be extra critical of seafood. So, being as cautious as we can be, and still be economically viable is all important. I just think about how it must have felt to have been a lettuce farmer during this last E-coli outbreak, those poor folks must have been tearing their hair out. So again, we all owe it to ourselves , and our entire industry to take as good a care as we posibly can of our product.

2) All buissnesses, including fishing, still have to be economically viable. Most guys have fish stack up on them sooner or later, your not catching enough fish in my mind if you don't. I have a tub of slush ice that I let em' stack up in when the bites on, and yes I bleed every one before they go in, but stack up they do, and the slush ice doesn't let me off of the hook. They're usually plugged full of feed, and if you don't get them cleaned right away they can belly burn. I try my best to stay up on it, but I fall behind sometimes, they may soak for an hour or two before I can get to them, I feel bad about it, but the fish come away looking ok, I would have eaten any one of them. The point i'm about to make is, we all can only do so much.

I use standard grease in my gurdies. A little tiny bit goes a long way. It's not like their's huge globs of it falling all over the deck. I don't usually see much of anything under my gurdies, or on my gloves, ect. I'm not trying to be contrary, I just don't see a realistic threat from it. No more so than handling my cannon balls, or the invisble stuff, like fall out from the stacks. The point is,,, unless your living in a bio dome like the bubble boy, we're all exposed to "stuff" every day. Where do you quit?? Our industry is probably among the cleanest out there, even with those who produce inferior product included. I try to shoot a moose or a deer every year for this reason. How many hormones and steroids are added to your hamburger? anybody know?? How about the farmed fish that our own federal government is constantly fostering, they spend their entire lives swimming in their own feces. Shot full of who knows what, all kinds of dyes and chemicals, these lay in the ice right next to your fish down at Costco or Safeway. Should we be using olive oil instead of hydraulic oil incase we blow a hose? maybe we could get the hulls made out of gingerbread too while were at it.I guess what i'm saying is, you can get overly anal about stuff.

I am mortified of the pending federal legislation that threatens to put us out of buissness if we don't get federal permiting for rain water to run off of our decks. I guess I just feel threatened that red tape and over zealousness is going to kill our entire industry before anything else ever does.

Jon, your fish look marvelous to me, and your boats have always looked immaculately well maintained in your posted pictures. - note; not all longliners or gillnetters have crappy, "disgusting" fish, so I guess we have a few stereotypes to put to bed here. Believe me, I've pitched every single fish I ever caught gillnetting.

To me, the simplest rule of thumb is to ask yourself, " would I eat that?"

Jon

2008-10-21 16:06:38

Yes, I knew someone would point out how I dumped all net fisheries together and called them disgusting, lol. :)

I've also seen disgusting troll caught salmon, that I would not eat, happily bought up by fish scows with nary a comment or frown.

"Would i eat that?" I don't think so.

Nice post yak. :)

Maybe I should split these 'quality' posts into a new topic so the kolstrand parts/mod/grease posts can have some room?

yak2you2

2008-10-22 03:04:42

Good idea Jon, we do have 2 different subjects going here.

I think some of the confusion comes from the differences in gear types here. I'm running hand gurdies that hang over my rail, similiar to the type this post started under. In addition, I land my fish in a seperate bin area where there is no chance of contamination. Power gurdies mounted right in the fish checkers are a different thing. If there is a problem of grease weeping out of them, then maybe a food grade grease might not be a bad idea. I've never used it, and have no idea how well it might last, or if it smells like bacon when it gets hot( there-by constantly sending the crew back to the galley), but it couldn't hurt if it works.

If you do have an accident involving fuel or oil of any type, and you get some contaminated fish, don't try to clean them off, get rid of them immediately. There not going to be worth the risk of contaminating your whole load, or getting anyone sick. You can always catch more!!

Salty

2008-10-22 06:48:24

I was totally thinking about power gurdies when I recommended food grade grease, but it probably would work fine on hand gurdies too.

Good comment on oiling the fish. If you break a hydraulic line for example and spray hydraulic oil over all your fish on deck what do you do? What I did one time when fishing chums was throw all the chums on deck, about 10, overboard. That was not the tough part. The line broke right above one of my holds with a nearly full brailer bag, about 100 chums. We dumped the whole bag. Another good reason for moving the fish off the deck quickly and closing the hatches.

Which brings me to "Can fix". A great product for temporarily patching a hydraulic line. I used it a couple of years ago and it held for a couple of weeks. If anyone is interested I will post the info on it here.

yak2you2

2008-10-22 11:06:43

Never heard of "can fix" Salty, I don't even have any hydraulics aboard currently, and i'm interested in hearing about that.

One other place that sounds like a good spot for your food grade grease is around hatches. Over the years I've had opportunity to be a deckhand on many boats in lots of different fisheries. In most of them we were constantly taking sealed hatches on and off to check the lazarette, grease the steering gear, or seal off a full tank of crab. Somewhere along the line I picked up the trick of greasing the rim that the hatch seats into. This did two things. 1) It made it easier to pop it back off if it was going to be on for a while. Aluminum hatches that have been seal for a while get this white crust built up,we had to get the crowbars out for hatches that didn't have a grease seal sometimes. 2) it made an absolutely waterproof seal. It is a very good habit to get into, I consider it a must, but I do remember seeing some of our crab come out with grease on their shells, and thats where it came from. One would like to think that somewhere in the processing line it would get boiled off, or wiped off, or something, but your leaving alot to the chance that min. wage employees are going to care that much.

Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks.

Salty

2008-10-26 19:54:11

http://www.marinetapes.com/canfix.htm

Here is the website that describes this product. I will try and post some of the retailers next.

Salty

2008-10-26 20:04:01

I have used this product a couple of times. The first time it worked for a couple of weeks on the pressure side of a hydraulic line. Plenty of time for me to get a replacement line. I used it again one cool night last spring when a line broke on the evening haul up at dusk when it was rainy and windy. My wife and I rushed both the wrapping and setting time and it did not work. I ended up replacing the line in the dark. I highly recommend having it around. Could come in handy not only for hydraulic lines but also for emergency repairs on water or fuel lines.

Salty

2008-10-26 20:33:26

Just finished the direct marketing course offered by UAS. Great course over three days. Learned lots but was pretty sobering. My advice to those contemplating direct marketing is as Al Franken used to say on his Air America show "Foget abut it." I am still trying to figure out the paper work on the two shipments we made this year. Ughhh!!

I am trying to figure out how to remove myself from the same pool as those guys who are not using food grade grease, are stacking salmon on top of each other on deck until the bite stops before starting to clean, are flinging salmon over their shoulders over the cockpit onto other salmon in the checker, cleaning salmon without pressure bleeding, waiting hours or even an hour before icing their fish , holding their fish for 6-8 days, starting their day count at 0 instead of one, rinsing their brailer bag with a low pressure hose from the outside and putting it directly back into the slush tank, etc. etc.........

We have far to go as trollers in taking care of our fish, and that includes me, even though we are far ahead of the gillnet and seine fleet . We are making some progress but it all still depresses me. I think of how much I have learned about taking better care of my fish in the last few years and how frustrated I am that I can't turn that knowledge into a better price. I can remember arguing almost 20 years ago now with my fellow ATA Board members about how we had to make sure we didn't have 6-8 day openings the first of July because of what it would do to the quality of our deliveries. Talk about blasphemous. Trollers I greatly admired treated me like a pariah.

I suppose this post will rankle the feathers of quality conscious trollers who thought they were doing a good job. If you are reading this post on salmon quality you are probably doing better than most of our fleet, but if you are like me, you know you could do better.

Somehow we have to break the paradigm where we get rewarded for volume at the expense of quality. Hopefully we can do this without all of us becoming freezer trollers.