Thread: Optimism

The Ft. Morgan trip is now only weeks away. I'm sure I'll be cursing myself, but I do plan on putting plenty of meat in the 'fridge to take home.

My best bet for keeping everything fresh for the 8 hour drive back is to pack in dry ice.

Does anyone know where I can get dry ice in or around Gulf Shores/Orange Beach?

The house we rent at Ft. Morgan has a freezer above the refrigerator. I pack fillets in qt. ziplocks with water and a little sea salt and freeze them daily. These frozen packages are essentially a replacement material for ice. The last fish that are caught and processed are placed on top; covered with ice. Our trip home is 7-8 hrs. The last packs are partly frozen by the time I unload them at home. The main concern is water in the bottom of my cooler. I stop for a pee/snack break at the 4 hr. mark and open the drain cock on the cooler. Been doing this for more than 30 yrs. and have never needed to change ice or anything. Main trick is freezing my catch. This means I am limited to the freezer, and the cooler, and the space in my car. CAR plays a large part in our harvesting due to space restraints. How many whiting, how many flounder, how many pompano (all), can we keep? Due to my usual luck and skill, sometimes the space issue for the cooler never comes up, lol.

Walmart normally has dry ice. If your fish is already frozen, put it in the bottom of your cooler, then a layer of several sheets of newspaper and about 5 lbs of dry ice on top.

Rouse's at the corner of 59 and Fort Morgan Road has dry ice.

Publix has it too.

IMHO fish keep much longer if you filet, vacuum pack (food saver) and freeze they day you catch them. I only have a 6hr drive home so they are still frozen when I get home. I put a beach towl in the bottom of the cooler and another on top and a bag of ice on top of that. I cover the cooler with the other towels and garment bag and keep it out of direct sunlight on the ride home.

I have an 8 to 9 hour trip. Filets frozen and vacuum sealed are still frozen when I get home as well. To me, Spanish and kings do better that way than frozen in water, fwiw. I boil most of my kings for mack salad. It keeps extremely well after cooking in vacuum bags.....but the wife isn't fond of the fishy smell in condo close quarters.

Sealing the cooler and keeping it out of the sun is key. Freeze fish. If you have fresh fish, wash, dry & then pack in ziplocks. Pre-chill the cooler.
Then pack ice, fish & ice. Fill any empty space with more ice or towels.
Then duct tape where the lid meets the bottom, seal it good, especially around the hinges & latches.
Put in the car and like Chillin noted, cover to keep it out of direct sunlight.
I once took 50 pounds of fresh shrimp from Mobile to northeast PA in a 120 quart standard white Igloo cooler using this technique. 24 hours later when I unsealed the cooler, there was barely 2 cups of water in the bottom of the cooler. It was a solid mass of ice and shrimp.

When salmon filleting, we do the same thing: vacuum seal meal-size cuts . . . no water. CO2 has always worked for me to assure freezer-to-freezer coldness. Chillenfish: yep . . . exactly like that.

Many thanks for the tips on available sources!!!

My foodsaver died 2 years ago, and I haven't pulled the trigger on a replacement. It kills me to pay so much and get such a flimsy product. How about other suggestions??? I've always used the foodsaver brand because plastic is readily available.

My first Foodsaver didn't hold up very long either. I looked at some of the others but the reviews were mixed for the cheap ones and the rest are way more than I can afford. I have the V3240 now and it seals better and faster than the old one and has a built in spot for the big rolls of bag material and a bag cutter. Amazon usually has a great deal on them around Christmas. Do yourself a huge favor and remove any trace of the red-blood line meat before freezing. Leaving a little isn't too bad on fish that's cooked fresh but it seems to "marinate" the rest of the fillet when frozen for a while and tastes pretty foul. I don't catch a ton of edible fish when I'm there and I hate for it to get ruined(rernt, ruint, rernd) by my laziness. Hope you catch a good mess.