Consider cleaning your fish at the waterside and returning all the waste parts. This returns at least some of the nutrients from the lost bio-mass. In North America, it has been proven that this provides an overall benefit to systems in places where commercially caught salmon offal is returned to rivers.
This all makes sense, I wonder why so many lochs ask you to not clean your fish at the lochside ? Just to make the place look pretty ?
QuoteI wonder why so many lochs ask you to not clean your fish at the lochside ? Just to make the place look pretty ?
You got it Aliferste. Generally, "fisheries" have this rule. Otherwise the place would look ugly and lose a sense of naturality :lol:
Alex
Hi folks,
I'm liking this new eating your catch part of the forum, which is one of the main reasons I fish to try and get the freshest fish I can...luckily for me I don't have to rely on what I catch to survive or I'd be very slim ! cooking a really fresh wild trout over the embers of a fire with some bay leaf and ground chilli was a real pleasure for me this summer.
Anyway, I thinks it's always a good idea to clean your fish as quickly as possible so as to not ruin the eating qualities, doing this on the loch they were caught and putting something back feels right as well and something I try and do whenever possible, even when sea fishing.
Now I need to catch some trout and make myself a fish smoker !!
Cheers & hae a good new year when it comes
i think i've pretty much always done this without ever really thinking about whether it might be better for the loch or system i'm on..more because i often eat the few fish i kill there and then , and if i dn't then (probably incorrectly) i've always thought the fish would be 'fresher' when i cooked it that evening if it was cleaned as soon after its final fatal encounter with a solid object.
i did experiment with homemade smokers but confess i now use an abu. i actually still think trout taste best wrapped in newspaper, soaked and cooked in the embers, but soemtimes making a fire is a bit of a palaver- especially when you'e traipsing around a series of lochs as i seem to mostly do on the few days hill loching i get these days.
Swithun - I know this to be the case with mackerel. Lots of mackerel caught on the east coast of scotland this year (don't know about anywhere else) were infested with worms. Reputedly these worms are harmful to humans if ingested (not that you'd want to eh?!!). Killing and gutting the fish immediately is a precaution which works by not giving the worms the chance to migrate from the gut to the flesh.
Cheers
Gerry
Quote from: drumgerry on December 31, 2006, 02:06:40 PMLots of mackerel caught on the east coast of scotland this year (don't know about anywhere else) were infested with worms.
Well that's true enough. I took an average of a box or sometimes two a week when we could get out and with on a very few exceptions those mackerel were the nastiest mess of writhing worms inside that I've ever seen, and I've gutted a fair few fish these last 50 years. They were wee things like fleshy hairs, some of them tightly coiled, and the numbers in most of the fish were beyond belief. Inside the body cavity, not just the guts themselves.
The inshore codling over here are often pretty wormy too, but nothing like this - it was like plague proportions. Mind you the crab boys didn't care much when they got them for bait.
I've been putting the guts back into the water it was caught from for years, take the trout home and wash then out much easier on cleaning the kitchen and better for Loch.
Also as Allan Liddle mentions, when a loch is over run with small fish I know of fly fishers who kill all the small ones and just throw them on the bank, instead they should be throwing the dead ones back into the loch. On local lochans near me on Skye which I might be the only one who fishes them once or twice a year I'm convinced this improves the average size of the trout.
Allan Crawford
Going to some loch that hardly ever gets fished, with a large population of small trout, then killing all the little trout you catch that day ( and throwing the wasted bodies back) will have no real impact on the average size of the trout in that loch. You would be having no more impact (on the size of the fish population) than a passing fish-eating bird. It's just pissing in the wind.
The fish themselves don't benefit at all. They don't spend too much time thinking about how big they are.
:worms
Discuss :lol:.
.D.
Quote from: .D. on May 18, 2008, 09:07:41 PM
They don't spend too much time thinking about how big they are.
probably only when being pursued by one bigger than themselves................ :D
Quote from: admin on December 29, 2006, 12:45:39 PM
Consider cleaning your fish at the waterside and returning all the waste parts. This returns at least some of the nutrients from the lost bio-mass. In North America, it has been proven that this provides an overall benefit to systems in places where commercially caught salmon offal is returned to rivers.
This sounds sensible but in actual fact it is very very dangerous and should NEVER! be done with freshwater fish unless you intend cooking the fish immediately after cleaning. Once you open a fish you allow immediate ingress to all the various waterborne bacteria etc. This will send the fish "off" in a very short time producing very dangerous toxins which you will not notice. This can result in very severe poisoning. Even when the fish is cooked later.
If you are going to eat freshwater fish then take them home whole while keeping them as cool as possible and only clean them under running tap-water.
TL
MC
If the water is not contaminated then it is not dangerous, but there is no way to check that under normal circumstances. Surface water is often contaminated. Human waste often being the cause, but there are many others like various animal wastes. Also, if you are used to certain water it has little or no effect on you, whereas it may well make somebody who is not used to it violently ill. This usually results in things like diarrhea or various other upsets but it can be far more serious.
I would never drink untreated surface water anywhere, it is just too potentially dangerous. The same applies to cleaning fish in it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterborne_diseases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterborne_diseases)
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/purifying-the-water-while-camping.html (http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/purifying-the-water-while-camping.html)
TL
MC
I certainly would not drink any lowland or roadside water. I have been drinking out of high hill burns for a long time with no ill effects (or none that I notice, others might have their own opinion :lol:)
It reminds me of a story, Hamish Brown I think, was taken to task for drinking out of a hill burn. He was warned about some parasite carried on sheep or deer "it's what the old shepherds die of you know?" He replied "as long as it's the old shepherds who are dying I'll risk it" :lol:
High on the hill I think you'd have to be pretty unlucky to pick up anything serious.
I knew two people who died as a result of drinking "spring" water in the Bavarian alps, they had each filled bottles with the water at the spring, which was how the cause was discovered. The cause was directly traced to canine feces ( Dogshit!), which had been deposited near the spring outlet. So while it may well be safe ( or safer at least ) to drink water from some sources as opposed to others, there is no way to know, so I prefer not to take the chance.
The risk of eating fish that has been cleaned in surface water is also a much higher risk than I want to take. I have seen analyses of rainbow trout fillets cleaned in spring water and not immediately refrigerated. After twenty minutes the intoxication toxins had reached levels which could easily be fatal. The problem with intoxication toxins is that they are not removed by cooking.
TL
MC
Also, since I was bitten by an infected tick some years ago and contracted borreliosis ( Lyme disease http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease) ), I am a great deal more careful in regard to other things as well.
Quite a few people have told me that they have been bitten loads of times and nothing happened, indeed I had also been bitten quite a few times before but simply removed the ticks with no consequences. This time however the consequences were quite dire and I could easily have died as a result.
There are enough things that can happen as a result of being unlucky with things you can not control, I see no good reason to take any risks at all with things I can control.
TL
MC
Quote from: guest on January 07, 2012, 12:59:04 PM
Aye way! The septic tank is an old brick built job - huge by modern standards, and providing you don't flush to much bleach and chemicals down the drain it just does what it's supposed to do.
I think he meant that you only having consumed one bottle of malt in 15 years was unlikely! :)
Presumably you meant that you paid the guy who emptied your tank with a bottle of malt?
TL
MC
Generally, round me, above habitation sheep fanks (with they're chemical dips) and forestry; flowing water is fine to drink. Until the EU caught up with me and my neighbours wee too had a supply straight off the hill, untreated un filtered. All agree it was better then, unfortunately newer arrivals to the village freaked at the sight of peat stained water coming from the taps and they reported it, our tame waterboard man who had been neglecting the treatment on our behalf got a right bollocking and since it's been back to the nasty treated stuff.
Flooks need still or very slow water to lay eggs and are more a feature of the glens and valleys than the hill. And there are so few people or dogs around as to make human or dog wast issues, a non issue.
Limes desease is an issue, but you just need to cover up and keep a weather eye out for the signs.
Several of the water supplies around here are "off the hill", and the water is coloured.
Most homes have some form of filtration and/ or UV treatment.
Shared supplies, and those used by B&B's hotels etc. are regularly tested by the local authority and frequently found to be below the acceptable standard.
This is usually down to poor maintenance or failures, and easily remedied.
Occasionally, supplies are declared unfit for consumption and establishments have to close until the problem is solved. Bottled water can be used as a stop-gap, but even showering and bathing are prohibited.
If it is a single supply to a private home no testing is carried out.
As it is unlikely that the filtration failed immediately prior to the testing, it would appear that residents and visitors are regularly using "contaminated" water.
I have not heard of any illnesses being directly linked to such water supplies.
Take a stroll around any UK hospital these days and see the hygene precautions in place, I doubt such strict practices are followed in your home or local pub etc. That is where the real risk lies, and, not to put too fine a point on it, there are many common ailments that are ONLY transmitted by whay is known as "the faecal-oral" route.
Take care out there.
Quote from: Buanán on January 07, 2012, 01:50:59 PM
unfortunately newer arrivals to the village freaked at the sight of peat stained water coming from the taps and they reported it
not much scope for them in the highlands then .Most cottages I have rented if you filled the bath it was like strong tea.
Quote from: admin on January 07, 2012, 02:48:45 PM
not much scope for them in the highlands then.
Regular complaint at the hotel.
After a downpour it can be quite spectacularly dark, you come out of the bath with a fake tan and get charged extra for this service.
Had the same problem with the ground water well in my old house. Even after filtering and other treatments it was still rather brown ( probably the same reason you mention as well, peat, or more accurately humin). It also tasted a bit odd but was regularly tested and found to be of otherwise good quality. I had a gas still for drinking water which was a mess on and of course cost money for gas, and the main vessel had to be cleaned regularly. Usually we bought large canisters of mineral water for drinking etc. This was actually cheaper than trying to use the well water. That was only used for bathing etc.
I had one of these for a while and it worked fine in summer but of course often dropped to very low or no output in winter;
http://www.solaqua.com/solstilbas.html (http://www.solaqua.com/solstilbas.html)
You still need to boil the water before drinking it!
There were a few good construction plans for these on line but I no longer have the link to the one I built. It was quite cheap and very efficient.
TL
MC