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Another way to tell is the scales. Yelloweye have smaller scales that are stacked really close together. Juveniles are usually a bright red with a bright white stripe down the side. Very "clean" looking fish. The scales look rough also.

I kinda went off the deep end myself a few years ago, picking up vintage reels. I'd love to display them, but I don't really have the space. I may just have to follow in your footsteps Allen!

Atta boy!!!!

C'mon man...I built a boat from scratch, remember? I can fabricate a lot of stuff! The challenge will be to keep everything light and portable, yet sturdy enough to do the job...

Believe it or not, but I can fix that if you're interested. That thing has some serious cajones!!

Mike

I used to fish salmon commercially and pressure-bled every fish. The results are amazing! It's one of those deals where it's easier to show that to explain, but I'll give it a go...

Once your fishhas been bled out for a few minutes on its own, cut the belly from anus to just past the pectoral fins. Carve out the gills. Once the gills are removed, sever the artery that runs along the spine, unless you cut it when you carved out the gills. When you're doing this the first time, it really helps to clean out the blood so you can see what's going on there. It basically looks like a very small white tube about 1/8" wide. Direct your flow of water into that tube. It doesn't take much water pressure to get it done quickly and properly. If you got it in the right spot and didn't cut any other holes in that artery, you should see the blood welling up and out of your belly cut. The blood that you see in the ribs should get pale.

***It's very important that you run the water BEFORE you remove the guts! It doesn't seem to work if you remove them first.

When the water starts to run clear, you're pretty much done and can finish gutting your fish. For those of you that don't know, the spoon part of those spoon knives you see at the tackle shop is for scraping the ribs and spine when you're gutting salmon. You can break the little crossover bits of bone that are back towards the anus and pump water in there to finish off your pressure bleeding.

This is the method that I used on salmon and the results are fantastic. Obviously it's much easier if you have an electric pump, but if you have a small bilge pump, you can probably do it on a kayak. I'm happy to demonstrate this method to anyone that happens to have an ungutted salmon handy!!

Mike