Mushy blue cod
Printed From: The Fishing Website
Category: Saltwater Fishing
Forum Name: The Briny Bar
Forum Description: The place for general chat on saltwater fishing!
URL: https://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=126599
Printed Date: 02 Aug 2026 at 5:59pm
Topic: Mushy blue cod
Posted By: WellyFisher
Subject: Mushy blue cod
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 6:36am
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Hi everyone, The last couple of times I have been out I have come home with a great feed of blue code. However, when I have cooked it up the fillets have been quite mushy (feel mushy to fillet too). Does anyone know what might be causing this? I have wondered if it is how I am storing the fish. I iki spike them and through them straight into the chilly bin. In the bin I have salt ice from the servo mixed with some sea water to make a slurry. Does too much sea water make them mushy? The fish almost felt a little frozen coming out if it. Could that do it? Thanks for any help in advance! |
Replies:
Posted By: MB
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 8:14am
I was going to say, had they not been on ice/slurry long enough  I see this with snapper sometimes if I catch a fish just before heading home.
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Posted By: Tagit
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 9:06am
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Some people like to leave fish in the slurry or in the fridge over night before filleting as they firm up a little.You could try that.
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Posted By: cirrus
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 9:48am
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Would be very unlikely that putting cod into ice brine would make them mushy. That is how fish should be stored. Maybe other factors at play. Are they slabby fish,not fully recovered after spawn in spring. Or is the water warmer than usual. Once found snapper caught in tepid water over mud banks had a strange texture. Or possibly what the cod have been feeding on could give the flesh a mushy texture.
And blue cod itself is a very delicate soft fish .
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Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 12:06pm
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We no longer use ice or slurry.. We gut then bin... throw any other meat into a slurry of any kind and goes .. strange.. Comms use ice.. not slurry.... Fish bars shops use ice, not slurry... We now use frozen ice pack block.. several sizes... large stay at the bottom, smaller get put into gut cavity, and they get lifted up through the pile of fish, so not just the fish in the bottom (slurry ) get cooled off. In saying that , the last fish in the bin, is generally dropped in and left ... still not fully chilled as its the 1st on the fillet board and definitely softer than those below... If happens to be a cod or similar species, yes could be described as "mushy" espec when compared to the fish below chilled right off. Also gutting out makes big difference to the flesh Maybe because chills faster, or nothing to contaminate the flesh, or leak into slurry , contaminating that, or maybe because the filleting boards are clean from start to finish. Or a combination of some or all of the above. We started off some yrs back with ice, and ice slurry, not gutting , moved to frozen lager salt ice blocks, then containers... then gutting, now the ice packs Noting all the way the +ve change in the fish taste, textures etc And dont need to buy ice, or ever forget to... |
Posted By: OuttaHere
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 12:48pm
| I got a decent cod yesterday and it was kinda mushy as well. I'm putting it down to warmer waters, plus maybe some time-of-year thing like post spawning or whatever. |
Posted By: Snappa Geoff
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 12:48pm
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Steps wrote:Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 4:27pm
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Some good advice there Steps. Made this mistake.. was gutted (pun inteneded) make sure that you have a good set electonic scales on the boat (about $40/50) in a ziplock.. and know the weight of the net. You get in the habit of gutting out fish.. including the PB that may get binned... and once gutted back at home, you cant get the real weight.. Ok further to the above.. just been chatting( about this thread).. to my fish handling expert son.. snr manager of a larger supermarket fish dept.. where handling, use by dates, storage age temps are kept to well within the required limits and continua monitoring and audits of that monitoring takes place.. strictly. In their fish bins.. huge bins, there is slurry in the bottom , well below the fish... Slurry makes the eyes go cloudy very quick.. bad look on the shelf...checking eyes is not reliable in the modern supermarkets... check the gills colour.. should be a good red, not darkish or brownish. Never put fillets or any fish meat in a slurry or fish that may have damage to the skin to allow the slurry to reach the meat. it kills the meat very quick.. ice is ok, but when removed , the meat has to be dried off straight away. |
Posted By: pjc
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 4:41pm
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Have tried leaving sea ice in bag and placing fish around,tried open bag and tipping ice over fish and also slurry. The problem mainly occurs during warmer water temps seem to get soft fillet but not in winter,so does water temp effect the fish? 2 on Saturday were firm to handle but the gurnard was softis it water temp or what they have been feeding on as one snapper the usually pink and the orther was bright red but in the gut was a smelly green mush ------------- Sex at 58.Lucky I live at 56 |
Posted By: letsgetem
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 7:19pm
| Wasn't red cod was it? |
Posted By: Tonto2
Date Posted: 18 Dec 2017 at 11:37pm
------------- slowly going where everyone else has already been |
Posted By: Marligator
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 12:08am
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I am sure Rozboon is onto it, in the Tauranga area we occasionally get decent sized blue cod of up around a kg but the flesh is always mushy compared to the nice firm fleshed fish we get on our Fiordland trips and I am sure it is because we have much warmer water than further south. Now my understanding is that the water down Wellington way is much warmer than normal, especially on the west coast. ------------- http://www.legasea.co.nz" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 8:00am
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Holy crap things must have changed dramatically then, as the first thing
we did on the trawler was to put the fish in a slurry, guess the
skipper with 30 years experience was a dumbarse Farming be it fishing cows , crops what ever, 30 yrs ago was very different to 60yrs ago, and today different to 30yrs ago. Rec fishing pre chilly bin and ice is very different to what we have and do today.. Then throw in how the top end 'craft meat' catches and processes to the std bulk methods Doesnt make him a dumbass at at all. |
Posted By: Tonto2
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 9:36am
------------- slowly going where everyone else has already been |
Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 9:57am
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Then throw in how the top end 'craft meat' catches and processes to the std bulk methods I think you will find, going from the retail end, ice is shoveled into the bins, then fish , with more ice packed around each layer. Reason is slurry kills the eyes, dull eyes doesnt sell at the counter or on the export market. When the bins hit the retailer, 12 to 24 hrs later, there is a little slurry on the bottom with the bottom fish still clear of it. Temps and condition is monitored/logged at each step from catch, packing, shipping , receipt at the retailer, at the chiller , and also bench to the wet bin or fillet display.. |
Posted By: pjc
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 3:40pm
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"Temps and condition is monitored/logged at each step from catch, packing, shipping , receipt at the retailer, at the chiller , and also bench to the wet bin or fillet display.." Dont kid yourself "Steps" it doesnt happen the way it should . This does not happen at all,been in the chilled/frozen transport industry for the last 25 yrs The only time a retailer checks temps is when having an audit or received dud product,most refrigerated vehicles have a calibration certificate issued annually for the fridge plant. A few years ago,12?,had to pick up an urgent pallet of ice cream and to take it to major retailer in Manukau,storeman probed it -18 which is correct for ice cream,went past 20 minutes later still sitting in loading dock. Wonder why your milk taste off??storeman unloads it,leaves it to one side wanting for the merchandiser to turn up could be out of chiller 1hr or more hence why we buy our milk from the gas station/dairy. ------------- Sex at 58.Lucky I live at 56 |
Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 3:59pm
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Change your super market then... Some supermarket chains work under both local body and MAF ...and you may well find those ppl who dont follow correct procedures/ documentation, its in their contract as dismissal.. So if someone is fudging, they are doing so simply because they know they can get way with it... Till someone who actually gives a damn reports it.. |
Posted By: pjc
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 4:36pm
As per your previous post about temperatures taken from when fish caught to landing in shop you have absolutely no idea.the only record keeping is the amount of stock,date caught ,buyer etc temperature records may or maybe not kept just monitored as far as chiller temperatures go,they basically look at the setting and watch for a few seconds to see that it is operating within set range. ------------- Sex at 58.Lucky I live at 56 |
Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 5:11pm
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This isn't a PJC vs Steps debate and has nothing to do with supermarkets! IMO the mushy blue cod is most likely post spawn as Cirrus suggested. Fish in poor condition have soft mushy flesh. I've seen it a lot with skinny kahawai, snapper and gurnard. ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: ffocus
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 6:23pm
| Catch plenty of blue cod down here and have not had any mushy fillets. Just catch , kill, into bin without ice. But the fish are from 14 degree water (now that its warmed up) and are home and filleted pretty quick. |
Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 7:13pm
I've not caught many blue cod but everyone I've caught has been off auckland's west & east coasts. I can't say they have been one of the better fish I've had. I've also had South Island blue cod, most likely it has all been frozen and I think it is a very nice but delicate flavoured fish. I really do think they taste better from the colder water. Just to add to the slabby fish thing, every skinny kahawai I've ever caught has had soft white coloured fillets. The good ones have firm translucent flesh when fresh and taste great. If I catch a skinny fish now I wont even keep it for bait. ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: veitnamcam
Date Posted: 20 Dec 2017 at 9:24pm
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Do not slurry any whitefish. It sounds wrong but water f&^%s fish, the quickest way to bugger 40 tonne of hoki (or any other white fish) is to flood the pounds with water, yes an ice slurry is used to cool the fish immediately on board but with drains in the pounds, the only reason the ice is in a slurry is to help the ice get all threw the fish and conduct the heat out of it,water should immediately be drained away once ice is threw the fish. What this means for recceys is. best to cool fish as quickly as possible but not let sit in water. Flaky salt ice spread threw the fish with the bung out of your chilly bin is the best option, if you do this to the best of your abillity even post spawn snapper comming out of 20degc+ water will be firm and fresh and the muscle will glisten with rainbow colours when filleted up to 10 hours later just like if you filleted the moment you got it on board. You are welcome.
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Posted By: Uncle
Date Posted: 20 Dec 2017 at 9:58pm
| thanks Cam...that makes a lot of sense. |
Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 21 Dec 2017 at 8:45am
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What this means for recceys is. best to cool fish as quickly as possible but not let sit in water. Flaky
salt ice spread threw the fish with the bung out of your chilly bin is
the best option, if you do this to the best of your abillity even post
spawn snapper comming out of 20degc+ water will be firm and fresh and
the muscle will glisten with rainbow colours when filleted up to 10
hours later just like if you filleted the moment you got it on board. Therefore where we have 'evolved' our rec handling of our fish.. noticing changes and improvements in the 'pan' Gutting out, then throw in the bin, stacking the ice bricks inside the gut and lifting them up thru the fish as the bin fills amounts to the same thing. We have several sizes of bricks in the bin. Gutting means far less bulk needs to be cooled down, and therefore cools faster/ easier. Without any issue of messy slurry being drained out of the bottom of the bin. We also have a set of kitchen shearers, these chop off the top 1/2 to 2/3 rds of the top and bottom sharp spines. Certainly make the final filleting/ scaling/ processing lot faster as dont worry about getting spiked. And the lemon juice to kill the fish odors when wash down.. doesnt sting. ( A cool trick picked up from Bazza) |
Posted By: Apex Predator
Date Posted: 21 Dec 2017 at 10:01am
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I disagree that you should not let dead fish sit in water but if you do the water should be as cold as possible. This is because very cold water will chill the fish quicker than flaked ice on its own will and is why Coms use a slurry. I freeze 8-9l of seawater in a 10l bucket. I have fabricated plastic dividers so that I get 4 big solid blocks of frozen sea water (I found that one 10kg block slides around and can split the inside liner of a plastic fish bin). I put this in my ice bin with around 10l of seawater. This lasts all day and the water in the bin chills to around -1 or -2 degrees, so cold that you cannot hold your hands in it. It stays clean and I will only change the water if I get a bleeder in there. I don't iki any fish I keep. The water is cold enough to stun them. When the eyes start going cloudy this means the fish are starting to freeze but they don't freeze solid and if you thaw them from this state they still look alive. They are really easy to fillet straight out of the bin and there is no mess, no blood contamination and no detrimental affect on the fillets. Another rule I have is to not ever let fresh water touch the fish as it seems to make it go off a lot quicker. This includes fresh water ice and even melted salt ice (which is virtually fresh water anyway) That's what works for me, it's cheap and effective, I only ever buy salt ice when I am heading away for several days. |
Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 21 Dec 2017 at 10:35am
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Before going to the ice bricks we also froze salt water.. in 1 and 2 L and 3L blocks.. Comments above on never let fresh water near salt water fish.. be it in the bin or rinsing fully agree.. Blocks this size dont melt anywhere as fast as flake or chips, with far less liquid in the bottom.. but did not cool the fish very fast, espec larger fish. It was from this we progressed to gutting , and handling smaller ice bricks to put inside the gut cavity evolved to.. Also far easier to stack in the bait freezer than a pile of 1 plastic containers of 1 to 3L.. with bait, bags gut frames etc for making future batches of burely and the 2L containers of burley... and extra work filing freezing MT ing etc. And yes we had cracked the bottoms of 2 chilly bins dropping frozen blocks ice into them...and maybe when hit a couple big waves , big crash coming down off them. AP above.. yep certainly see the reasoning , and agree with his larger blocks AP goes far wider than us, catches far bigger fish than us, his bins far bigger than our modest 50/60L chilly bin. Cloudy eyes.. thats only a concern for presentation in a retail freezer.. re sale value...not relievent to recs. As to fish storage temps recommended I think from memory its 2 to 5 degs (??) Will check with those regs/ specs later. And there was something about salt water fish dont freeze like meat at 0 degs.. if they did there would be a lot floating (not due to comms) fish in the cooled parts of the oceans. |
Posted By: Clifftastic
Date Posted: 21 Dec 2017 at 11:01am
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Thanks Cam and Apex. I reckon i'll slurry for an hour after the last fish has hit the bin, then drain all the liquid off and repeat until filleting time. Sounds like the best way to keep fish in good nick alright. ------------- http://www.legasea.co.nz" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 21 Dec 2017 at 5:33pm
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As to fish storage temps recommended I think from memory its 2 to 5 degs (??) Will check with those regs/ specs later. Wet fish storage 0 to -2 deg can go as 5.9 deg, over that its dumped Fillets kept at 0 to 4.9 deg |
Posted By: Apex Predator
Date Posted: 21 Dec 2017 at 5:59pm
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Frozen bottles of sea water will not work as well as direct contact with the ice. The reason is that the ice in the bottle quickly becomes insulated from the water you are trying to cool and you are effectively trying to chill the water in your bin with cold water in your bottles. I’m not travelling far at all at the moment Steps. Round trip usually around 15, sometimes 20 nm. Fish your feet first. Save the gas for Jan-April trips out wide. |
Posted By: Steps
Date Posted: 22 Dec 2017 at 9:16am
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We did the frozen bottles before the frozen containers , triped into the bin. Frozen bottles are round, take a up a lot of room per volume in the freezer and in the bin... Put the slower cooling of the fish down to the gaps, throw in your point on water insulation.. Because of that went to square milk bottles. Again difficult to get good contact with fish, and the water insulation effect would have been there too. The ice blocks worked well, just more work. Hence why now using the varying sized bricks. Perfect weather window today ..good tides, an afternoon / evening fish today. |
Posted By: bazza
Date Posted: 22 Dec 2017 at 10:27am
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We find square 1.5 ltr plastic bottles the type coconut water come in are just the right size to make a bottom layer of a frozen base & fill them with sea water which freezes to a lower temp than fresh water & lasts much longer.Adding a bucket of sea water seems for some reason to lower the temp inside the bin more than the bottles alone without the fish making contact with any slurry. Once back home can choose whether to clean/fillet fish then or leave it overnight until the next morning ... the latter option being our preference. In any event the bottles go back into the freezer where they freeze ready to use the next time or to thaw & use to submerge live shellfish or suchlike to keep both alive & fresh. We choose to have one of the bottles filled with frozen drinking water should it be required but is essential the sea water filled bottles are identifiable as not a pleasant experience to take a swig of sea water when thirsty. The above works for us plus avoids having to go out to purchase salt ice not to mention the convenience of always having it on hand & would not like to guess at the money saved over the years other than it would be substantial. ------------- When you cry, feel pain or sadness, no one notices your sorrow .... BUT fart just ONE time !!!!!!!!!!! |
Posted By: OuttaHere
Date Posted: 22 Dec 2017 at 11:01am
As an aside, 15-20nm round trip is fishing your feet? My last trip out was right on 1nm for the entire day's fishing :)
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