Thread: Eating skippies!

Originally Posted by No.3

Fill a 10L bucket with water, bleed them into that. Contains the mess nicely (tails in the sky means no power to kick anywhere, but the kicking actually helps with bleeding out into the saltwater). Once bled out, head, tail off, gut and scrape the insides out and into salt ice until chilled, then fillet and skin. I don't tend to iki them as it is easier to bleed them without iki-ing as it stops the muscles and kicking reflex. You need the blood out of them firstly as that contains a lot of nasty taste making stuff. I tend to slice basically up to the backbone while in the bucket, sometimes it's easier than others but it kills them pretty much instantly just doesn't stop them kicking like the iki does. When done right and cooled quickly well worth catching, top quality eating fish with a firm pink-off white flesh.

Don't delay with filleting them though, the blood muscle needs to come off the fillets too...

I know a fair number of Asians that will dispute the no iki part 1000%

Originally Posted by Pengy

I know a fair number of Asians that will dispute the no iki part 1000%

Yep. Probably just because the skippy NEEDS to be bled out - no other tuna does in my experience. You want to stop every other tuna from beating itself to a pulp, and stuffing itself full of lactic acid in it's final moments and that's what the iki does. Shoving a wire through the backbone removing the central harness stops the muscles instantly and prevents lactic acid formation - but also traps any blood in the flesh which in the case of the skippy is very much not what you want. Each to their own, but for me it's the difference between top grade eating fish and catfood or bait.

Having said that, I had one charter out on the boat with asian gentlemen - they were actually an awesome group to have on the boat apart from the fact they nailed 5 frozen skippy's out of the bait freezer. I had caught them the week prior and straight into the freezer complete for bait and ended up not going out for big game due to weather. I figured I'd use them on the charter and save the price of a box of pillies, thawed the five out early that morning and left them in the salt ice. Came out after dropping the anchor and they'd found the lemons, the sauces and the bait knives and into the skippies. Taken photo's of their feast, made the charter for them the rest of the days fishing was just a piss around they were stoked. I couldn't believe it, five skippy frames later and 14 stuffed happy punters and we hadn't even started the day, crack me up...