Fish belly & ab guts

Those using fish belly & ab guts for bait.  How do you preserve it?  Do you freeze it or salt it or what?

I once salted ab guts and it made great bait--I should do that again.  I generally freeze it though.  I've never used fish belly--sounds like it's a good bait.

For fish belly, I often just freeze it.  It's tough.  I have salted it before too and then frozen it to keep it fresh.  Either way works fine.  The best bellies I've used were salmon bellies... nice and flashy and lots of oil for scent.  

Ab guts would definitely need to be cured to make them tough enough to stay on the hook.

Erik

Erik,
For that reasons you mentioned, I like eating the belly part of salmon.  I can’t bring myself to use that for bait.

Not sure if guys are talking about ab guts or ab trimmings.  I tried the trimmings once and this stuff is tougher than leather.  It was really hard to take it off the hook and is very stiff.

BTW, I always toss that horn shaped ab gutt sack, but was told that my grandmother used to fry it up and eat it back when they lived in Cayucos.  That is way too gross to even imagine.  I don’t even think Chuck could handle that.

Stuart

The horn shaped ab gut sack is actually the gonad!  Pinkish for males and usually green for females.  It is the best bait!  It falls off the hook easily, but it's awesome chum.  If you don't catch a cabezon on the ab gonad then there are none around!

That's true... we used to use the green ab gonad or whatever it is for bait and I remember consistently catching cabazon on it.  It falls off the hook very easily... makes me wonder if its worth curing with salt or pro-cure to make it tough?

WOW!!!  Male Abs are quite well endowed.

I always thought the green stuff(and pinkish/orangish stuff) was semi digested kelp.

Chuck, you up for the challenge??  Raw or cooked???

Stuart

If you can get someone experienced in preparing and eating ab guts to make it for me... I'll eat it!!!  
I'd like to try it cooked first.

Could you try wrapping the gonads up like they do with roe? I think they use cheesecloth.

One night I was flipping thru the channels on the TV and I came across Iron Chef and they had abalone to work with.
It looked like they literally used every part of the ab, including the guts.
And when one of the chefs started frying a little of the meat, the announcer acted like it was sac religious. It seemed he had never heard of anything so absurd.
They even cooked the black stuff I trim off and toss out with the guts. It was grossing me out. I will stick to  "abalone,  the other white meat." thank you very much!

BigEyeDave showed me a cool trick for ab guts.  Put em in a goodie bag and slide it down your anchor line.  There will be a cabbie sitting on it when you return. Bring your gun!