Keeping mussels.

[davem2005]

Has anyone any advice on how long mussels will stay alive once collected.

Or alternatively I could collect them, shell them and freeze them.

We have a full days travel on the friday to fish saturday and sunday...any advice on the best way to get mussel there fresh would be appreciated. If frozen they would probably thaw during the day and be refrozen overnight... will this ruin them.

Cheers
Dave

[The Great Wallsendo]

Dave do you really need them perfectly fresh? coz mussels will re-freeze again and again...some anglers (on here) even swear by the aged ones

[mick dunn]

Smellier the better.

[fishfinder]

totaly dissagree and think the fresher the better!! if you keep them cool dave they will be fine

[=>Tony<=]

see if you can have some aged and some fresh. Keep options open.

[willywetegg]

I think that the only time I would prefer to use "old" Mussel would be on the shore after a good blow.I don't have a lot of experience on boats using old Mussel but it would be fresh for me especially if it was calm. As Paul says just keep it cool and it will be fine.

Jim.

[davem2005]

So "keep em cool"

But to shell or not to shell. I can get as much ice as I want but do I take em live or shell em and transport em that way.

Maybe shell em thursday and freeze em down...transport em in ice and thaw them over the weekend?

Space will be of a premium and the car owner will not be too happy to have a car smelling of rancid mussels till february.

I can see me having to ask the same question over black lug. Something else I have never transported over distances...does it refreeze? and once thawed does it have a shelf life.

Life would be so much simpler if cod took sweetcorn and luncheon meat!

We are going to have a meeting regarding bait requirements for the trip before we go as so far there is no mackrel or herring available to buy locally and we may have to take far more than we planned on.

Oh the pleasures of fishing away from home!

Cheers
Dave

[KeithB]

I'd say shell them before you leave and just transport them in a cool box.

Could you possibly order some of those blast frozen mackeral / herring online and have it delivered to your destination for your arrival.

ps

Where ya gan? (just being nosey )

[davem2005]

Keith,
If I told yah that I woud have to kill yah!

Seriously though ...me Jeff and Oblikta have flexed the visa card and are going to scrabster for the weekend.

Its essentially a shark trip but we will be drifting for them over ground...hence the need for bait to get a few cod.

The shark rods go out over the back and we fish as normal over the rest of the boat ...its a 50 footer so should have bit of spare room with three on board.

Normal pactice up that way is to jig for cod untill one comes up minus its body then put down a shark bait. Which is genarally described as a hair rigged seven pound cod alive!...not a bad size of bait IMHO...cos u aint gonna get whiting

As we are not doing a general charter with a full boat the plan is to use rubby rubby and a shark magnet to help attract the sharks as apposed to relying on the general catching normally associated with a full charter. Its not regular practice up that way as to quote the skipper "there is no need"...but to me if the rest of the world uses rubby dubby to get sharks...why should it not work in scrabster.

At this stage there are some doubts being expressed by the skipper as the sea temp is way above the norm for this time of year and so far there have been few sightings. theres a week or two to run yet and we have an alternate plan...either way we need the bait

Hope this answers yer questions yah nosey fe**er

Cheers
dave

[KeithB]

Cheers Dave, sounds good

One more question, what's a shark magnet? (obviously I alread know what a babe magnet is)

[KeithB]

Bit confused, just did a quick google, and all I found was reference to magnets for repelling sharks.

[davem2005]

A shark magnet...

Much the same as a babe magnet...

People told me yours is broken I wont mention names at this stage

Its basically a 12 v device that puts out an electrical impulse into the water . Sharks home in on blood and the electrical discharges of other fish.

Its not unusual for sharks to mouth the propellor/z drive of a boat due to the electrical impulses they discharge into the water. Its why we fix a sacrificial anode at service time. Does it work...who knows ...but it is unlikely to do any harm. If I read from the manual "mount the sender unit in a wire cage as it is likely to be atacked by sharks"....well that will do for me ...consider me hooked.

As to what is it...i personally think its a electronic ignition unit out of a Mk1 Granada 2.8i robbed from a scrap yard in cleckheaton and sold for a ridiculous amount.

We'll see
Cheers
Dave

[The Great Wallsendo]

This all sounds eerily familiar...

Quint: Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down to the pond and chasing bluegills and tommycocks. This shark, swallow you whole. No shakin', no tenderizin', down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that'll bring back your tourists, put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant. I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, chief. I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no mates, there's too many captains on this island. Ten thousand dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

or...

Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?
Brody: What happened?
Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

best of all...

Brody: We're gonna need a bigger boat

[KeithB]

Cheers Dave, I mis-read the google hit, it actually said surfers are a magnet for sharks there's loads down Tynemouth if you need some extra bait for the trip.

[mark]

if you leave the mussels in their shells they'll stay alive for 2 to 3 days in a cool box, bit of a clart having to shell them though when your itching to fish, but you could shell them on the boat on the way out...

then keep the shells, stick em in an an old net onion bag with a couple of rocks and drop it over the side where you're gonna fish. Might put some extra scent in the water in a ground bait stylee

just a thought. Never tried it but sounds good!