Angling Unlimited takes the absolute best care of your catch. All landed fish are bled immediately for maximum freshness. Salmon are gutted and iced within minutes. When your fish arrives at our dock, we immediately filet and cut to your preference, vacuum pack and freeze it. We know it’s important to you to bring home the freshest catch, whether you’re traveling few hours away or half way around the world.
Tip: If you have a long layover at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and want to assure that your fish remains hard frozen, take advantage of the baggage storage service with a freezer adjacent to the Alaska Air carousels. It’s called “Baggage Storage by Smarte Carte” and the cost is between $8 and $22.
Once you arrive home, there are a few things you should know about handling and preparing your fish for cooking.
Unpacking Your Fish
As you open the box you will find all your fish vacuum sealed and labeled in heavy duty bags. As you unpack, look for any bags that may have been punctured in transit. We freeze our fish down to about 20 degrees below zero so they will be just fine to eat, but we recommend you eat any with a punctured bag first. Our bags are industrial grade so punctures are a rare occurrence, but it’s still good practice to handle your fish gently and not toss it around.
Take Time to Properly Thaw
To get the very best flavor and nutrition from your catch, take time thawing it. Put the fish on a plate in the fridge the day before you want to eat it and poke a hole in the bag to let the vacuum out. You can even pull it out of the fridge for 10-15 minutes before cooking it to allow it to come back closer to room temperature.
If it Smells Fine, it is Fine
The FDA’s only test on whether fish is good to eat is the human nose. If you thaw your fish and it smells fine, then eat and enjoy! If it smells rank or super-fishy, then best to throw it out.
Don’t Overcook Your Salmon & Halibut
Salmon & Halibut are at their very best when cooked properly – meaning not overcooked and chewy, but not raw either. Have the courage to pull the fish off the heat before you feel it’s fully done as it will continue to cook a bit after you pull it. You can always put it back on the heat to cook more if needed, but you can’t fix overcooked fish.
Sharing with Friends
We know you highly value the fish you will take home and the opportunity share some with friends & family. When you get home, set aside what you need for yourself. Then share what’s left right away rather than waiting until next spring.
Fish Recipes
Every year we do a 4-day fishing event called “Hook It and Cook It” where Chef Ludger of Warm Springs Inn & Winery joins our guests and cooks up some delicious fresh-caught fish. We encourage you to come join us, or at the very least download the Hook It and Cook It Recipes from 2017 and pretend you were there. We also have a number of other salmon, halibut, rock fish & black cod recipes on our website for you to try out.
From all of us here at Angling Unlimited, we thank you for making the trek all the way up to Sitka to join us. We hope you took home some great fish and even better memories. We have an abundance of both, so if you need more we’d love to have you back.