Salt Ice Alternative

I have been experimenting with what is the best alternative to purchasing a bag of salt ice on every trip out (scrooge I know ).

Anyway I have tried all sorts of variation with frozen this and that trying to ensure my freshly caught fish slide into a nice chilled slurry of sorts to bring the temp down quick and preserve my catch. Yesterdays experiment has proven to be the best, with the water mixture still as cold as this morning (yes I kept, just to see.)

What I did as follows:

2 x 2 litre plastic icecream containers with 2 teaspoons of salt in each and filled up with cold water, dissolve the salt first with a splash of hot water. Put them in the freezer at least 12 hours before heading out.
2 x 2 litre plastic milk containers filled with water and placed in the fridge.

When heading out pop the frozen ice from the icecream containers into your chllibin (they slide out pretty easy), then empty the cold water from the milk containers into the chillibin.

Done, this kept the water very cold and on return from fishing after 4 hours the ice was only about half gone and the water cold enough to get your wrist aching when you hold it in.

If anyone has any other tips or tricks or a solution that works better please let us know.

Hi Mark

Is that normal Salt or Sea Salt?

Just used normal table salt. So not sure as to whether Sea Salt would be better.

From what i know salt water has a higher freezing point than normal water therefore stays frozen for longer once in your bin defrosting. I THINK !! Someone please correct me if I am wrong, as the only thing I was good at in Science at school was lighting the gas tapes and blowing things up for class entertainment.

Hey Mark... back from USA this morning (all Disney'd out!)... so thought I'd catch up on everyone's news.

I'm tighter than you (money wise mate) ! This may not be legal and if not don't do it but... what about this - simply fill your icecream container/s with sea water and put that in the freezer ready for next outing? Then empty the blocks into the bin and top up with fresh sea water while on the water to create the slurry. Just a random thought but I may be missing something.

Given you live close to the beach, can you make slabs for all of us and we'll drop by your home on each venture out

Welcome back Innsie I missed your friendly banter!!! I hope you and your family had a great time.

Good idea on using seawater, but that would mean having containers with me and remembering to fill them etc.

I can see it now ..... setting my kids up at the front gate with a Frozen Salt Water stall to supply jetskifishos on the way to the ramp .50c per block !!!

I hope your on the water this weekend. Let us know if you are. Sat looks ok Sunday is looking perfect.

I think Sunday would be great. Will make contact Sat afternoon/night before 8pm. Should be over jetlag by then.

I like the idea of freezing some sea water.

I always take 10-15 litre container of sea water home to wash my fillets. I only ever wash in sea water them in fresh water. They last much longer in the fridge without getting any fishy smell at all.

Usually I have heaps left over so good idea to fill some containers and freeze them.
I wonder about leaving them in the container - say drink bottle size. Then they can be refrozen like freezer chilli pads.

Welcome back Neil (Innsie)

I've tried with seawater frozen, and then put it in a ice shaver. That worked really well but took too much time. It turned into slurry fairly quickly.
I think it might be a drive by Mark's house to buy some frozen seawater from his kids. I'm sure his family would be happy to see jetskifishoes at 6am to buy ice.

"young entrepreneur's" (spelling??)

Richard,...(your just too organized, but i think your right. good job for the kids)

I don't know about the ice, but i do know that if you put a half a tea spoon of baking powder in your slurry it keeps your fish (snapper) the nice red colour they should be.A comercial fisherman told me this and i've done it ever since.

Not too sure as to why you guys wash your fillets....?????(come to think of it, alot of people I know do). I have not washed mine in 20+ years of fishing as I have never seen a need to. Am I missing something???