At HG fishing, we have a strong focus on sustainability. We catch fish to eat, first and foremost, but importantly we are selective in what we keep.
Optimum fish care is critical to maintaining them at the highest standard for eating, and every fish we keep, is bleed, Iki spiked and then put in an ice slurry for 24 hours before filleting. We encourage only keeping what you can eat fresh, which equates to 3-4 snapper in the 45-55cm range for my family of four.
We have found that the combination of bleeding the fish, followed by an Iki spike to the brain and then straight onto an ice slurry for 24 hours vastly improves the eating quality of the fish. We also keep the fillets clean and dry throughout the whole process. The effect of this is pure, non-fishy smelling fillets that are still fresh and firm seven days after capture.
We don’t keep snapper below 40cm because they are too small to warrant keeping. You don’t get enough fillet per fish, and the flavour is quite bland on the smaller fish. For this reason, we like to keep the snapper in the 45cm-55cm range and then release the rest. 75% of our fishing is in water sub 12 metres, so releasing snapper in healthy condition is no issue. When we are fishing deeper than 30 metres, we tend not to release fish unless it is a trophy and in which case, we have release needles onboard to deflate the fish’s swim bladder hygienically and safely to give the fish the best chance of survival.
We have a firm release focus on our boat, and the joy of watching an angler release a big fish is almost as exciting as the hooking, fighting, and catching. The pure sense of pleasure after release is something the angler never forgets; the angler’s dopamine levels tend to go through the roof after a successful release. Plenty of anglers have regretted killing a big fish, but none have regretted releasing one. Better yet, as we are predominantly lure fishing, we know they survive release very well, and we have the opportunity to catch that fish again and again. All the while still fishing for food, selectively keeping the fish we want, and releasing the rest unharmed.
Keep the knives sharp, icebox well slurried, fish bleed, and the eating experience will increase significantly.
