Cleaning Stations
 

Recent stomach virus got me thinking about the c Pernt fish cleaning station and its cleanliness. For the last three weekends I have cleaned fish there and fought pelicans. There is usually bird crap on the cutting boards and table that we wash off with water. I am thinking about bleaching prior to cleaning fish from now on as a precaution. Maybe Sauté can enlighten us on bacteria present on these cutting areas and if they pose a serious health concern.

That place is nasty during the winter with all the pelicans..... Cal Pt. needs to do something about the issue I think.

Cleaning tables are nasty year round, pelicans and Gimmedats leave $hit errywhere.

yep, sorry to say but that stuff is on what your eatin even though you think you washed it off the bacteria is all over your fish. cooking "should" kill it but who knows what kind of septic stew is brewing there. if you cook your fish well I wouldn't think the table is why you got sick but it could be adding strange flavors to em. pelican poop flavored trout anyone? lol.

I make a habit of cleaning my fish at home where I know my cleaning station gets cleaned and disinfected each time I use it. I put the fish heads and guts in a 5 gallon bucket in the chest freezer and next time I go fishing I pop the frozen guts out of the bucket and stick it in the ice chest, when I get to the water I return it to feed the crabs and it doesn't defrost at all so its not messy. for those who go with ice chests filled with ice, just leave it in the bucket and put it in back of the truck till you get to the launch.

I suggest to anyone if they use a cleaning station "somewhere" to keep a piece of scrap plywood in the back of your truck and put it on the cleaning station and don't let the fish you are cleaning or the fillets touch the table, just use it as a bench and not a counter.

just my two cents

yum, maybe start bringing bleach in a squirt bottle

Spicers is worse
Will start using a bleach cleaner, way to convienent to clean at home IMO but will take precautions none the less.

Good advice guys, I think that I will bring my own piece of plywood and a spray bottle of bleach. I'm glad that pelican are no longer endangered but they are nasty critters.

Pelicans are gross. Wish they weren't our state bird.

I never caught enough fish to use them but I always planned on bleach. As far as using plywood, I believe it will be as bad or worse. The wood will allow stuff to get in between the fibers. I think that's why wooden cutting boards are discouraged.

How about one of those cleaning tables you can buy at academy? It's small enough to keep in the bed of your truck, and the surface should be safer.

http://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/cold...tion/pid-14347

Pointe aux chene marina has a cleaning station that is screened in. That would work at calcasieu point to keep the birds away.

screening in the area would be a great idea!

This is the reason I just clean my fish at home...Also I like to be able to go home and chill out for a few, and take my time cleaning the fish while having a few cool pops.

I don't have anywhere to clean my fish at home tho.... and I usually keep mine on ice the rest of the day and clean them the next day.

Drop it in 325° grease it's all good

I recommend you be real carefull to wash it all off, you don't want the bleach to get into the meat and change the taste of the fish.

there are other options too like an old glass top from an end table or scrap aluminum plate from a fab shop or plexiglass etc etc just give it some thought.

as for those who say they don't have a place at home to clean fish, use your truck tailgate. that's what I use right there in the driveway then I hose everything down when im done. it doesn't get any easier or simpler then that and I bring my cleaning station with me everywhere I am so if im on the side of hwy 1 I just pull out the 12v fillet knife and have at it. I always have a bucket in the truck to rinse things off or for a bathroom emergency lol.

Walmart sells a very large white plastic cutting board for under $15. I wouldn't not use plywood as you are not going to be able to keep it clean.

Shhh,.. that is my secret sauce I use when cooking fish!!

An old peice of countertop with the laminate surface works great. I keep a piece that's about 3ft wide. You could buy some laminate material to glue to a piece of plywood for cheap.

I'm just going to build a cleaning station in my back yard with stainless sink and cutting boards. Only problem is getting rid of scraps when you're done

well if you don't mind the price these tables are nice: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_saca...rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

they work good for an outside table for gardening and whatever too

I usually bag up all the scraps and stick them in the outside freezer and will take em out the day the trash comes and throw em in the dumpster. They don't get nasty and stink up everything that way





also with bleach its one of those few times where less is more, you don't want to use pure bleach, needs to be diluted down. Pure bleach doesn't do much for killing all bacteria. you need some water in there so it can get into the cell. Many labratories use a 10% bleach concentration to kill 'germs'.

If anybody needs a sink I have a stainless double sink and also one of these hipster sinks below that I have never used. If anyone wants it pm me, you have to get both though. Sister gave it to me long time ago for xmas and never used it, be good for someone

For these reasons I use a Lifetime 4ft folding table with adjustable legs and a hardwood or teflon cutting board. Plastic and Teflon cutting boards have less pores to trap bacteria. A piece of plywood is the worst thing to use. The grains in the wood are not tight and bacteria can penetrate. Fish contain scombroid, ciguatera, and tetrodotoxin poisoning. The poisons are seldom severe and will effect you within an hour of consumption. Hey guys bleach your surfaces and knife before and after cleaning your fish and you should be fine.
The problems most people do is not properly ice the fish after the catch and cross contamination. Once the fish is taken from the water bacteria starts its growth process. You cannot stop it but can slow it down. Remember treat fish like chicken. Never use a raw surface for a cooked product. And for you sushi lovers. Sushi grade fish has been frozen for a minimum of 7 days to kill bacteria. The trick to the quality is to freeze quickly and defrost slowly.

Double bag it and it will just be starting to stink when the trash truck rolls around. Clean all my fish in the hood, and chunk the scraps in my can.




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Cool, an even better idea. Usually I clean fish at home on a plastic cutting board or at my buddy's wharf on a piece of plastic and throw the heads in the lake. There are a few seagulls around but no pelicans. 10% bleach seems like a good idea.

Raymond, before using plywood, you might wanna seal it with several coats of polyurethane, or, even better...pour some epoxy over it. I'd buy the fiberglass/plastic from WallyWorld, tho.

Attachment 64840 $8.99 at SAMs.

I appreciate this discussion. We use Calcasieu Point a lot and sometimes other fish cleaning stations. We are considering either a cutting board or a scrub pad and dish soap. I am leaning toward the scrub pad and dish soap. A cutting board would have to be washed before and after each use anyway, so would not reduce the need to cart around the dish soap and scrub pad. Most of the fish cleaning stations we use can be made usable with less than five minutes of soap and water.

Bleach as a disinfectant is really only effective on surfaces that are reasonably non-porous and that have been scrubbed with soap and water first anyway. You can't really sterilize a surface with bird poo on it with a bit of bleach without scrubbing away the bird poo first. The bleach will probably get the last 1% of the germs, but the soap and water are needed to remove the 99% of the germs and the bulk poo (and any other fish goo) first.

i usually bury the guts along my many citrus trees in the back yard. great fertilizer.

Just get one of these

http://bigcuttingboards.com/

If you can find a place that sells industrial rubber and gasket making materials they usually have teflon in bulk. Just get them to cut you a teflon cutting board of your desired deminsions.

Removing 99% of the poo is correct, but I think you have it backwards for the germs.

This is what I have at my camp for cleaning fish. I used a big piece of Starboard that I bought off of Ebay as the top. The Starboard covers the entire top up to the sink. I don't have a finished picture of it with the top on my computer. I'll try to remember to take a pic next time I'm home.

Bleach Kills everything on contact, just need to rinse off prior to cleaning fish.

I wouldn't think so, if the cleaning board is kept behind the seat of your truck or the back of the suv then it might get a little dusty at best if left there all the time but a quick rinse and your ready to clean fish or not even that if you just bring it only when you go fishing.

bringing a cleaning board with you means the only cleaning you need to fo would come after your finished cleaning fish and since it would all be fresh and not stuck on, a quick rinse down with a little soap then spray some bleach on it after to kill and any bacteria that might still be there and that is all it would take.

if your in a car or suv then its the same situation but you would want to leave the board in the boat to finish drying off on the way home.

I don't see scrubbing poop as being "simpler" or "easier" by any stretch of the imagination.

toi each his own but even if the cleaning you do works out to be equal with either option then I prefer the option where im not cleaning bird poop that can have all sorts of nasty bacteria to make you sick. like it or not you can never get anything completely clean, it just looks that way.

Man yall getting serious on this issue

Cleaned over 4000 fish last year on one cleaning table and never saw other than water washing it off!!

That's what I was getting at. Soap doesn't kill anything. Even so called antibacterial.

lol, pretty much the same here, I just use a 2'x3' piece of 3/4 plywood I toss onto my tailgate and I just hose it off when im done, no soap no bleach no nuttin and its always clean and free of bacteria. im not going to argue with anyone about how terrible wood is but its been THE tool of choice for cutting boards for 100 sumptin years.

mamma always said "what don't kill ya just makes you stronger"