Thanks to you all for the warm welcome!!!
I will post answers to questions over the weekend, but quickly, not much time for fishing in these vessels.
But, we do eat a lot of seafood, from local markets when possible, but Sysco actually has some great frozen products. Not to start off by ruffling feathers, but I am a firm believer that an excelent quality frozen product is superior to a poorly handled fresh one,
The job for this season is mapping the California coast and I will be departing around May first.
thanks again,
later,
Nan

I'm with you 100% on the frozen, Nan.

FAS is actually fresher than fresh, because it can be as much as four or five days before the consumer sees "fresh" fish. And for anyone who lives more than 50-100 miles inland, well, I'm sorry. Nothing sold as fresh compares to the quality of FAS.

Compare the two processes. For fresh fish, the fish is caught, either by nets or long lines, and tossed on ice until the boat has a full load. Might be a couple of days just for that. It's then taken to shore, where the processor sorts and cleans the catch, and sends it on to the wholesale market (yet another day gone by) where your local fishmonger buys it and puts it on display. It might be in his case for another day or two.

FAS, on the other hand goes like this: The fish is caught, either by net or long line. It is then immediately cleaned, broken down, flash frozen, and stored in commercial freezers until there's a full load. Total elapsed time from deck to freezer: A couple of hours at most.

Nowadays, when there's a quality problem with frozen fish it's either because it was defrosted improperly, or it's been thawed and refrozen. Far too much of the latter going around, unfortunately.

The worst is to use a home freezer. Even zero-degree freezers work too slowly. As a result, the ice crystals are large, and pierce the cell walls. Then, when the fish is defrosted, it gets mushy. Particularly if it's defrosted quickly.

Good Morning Cathy,
Spotted prawns are pretty much a Northwest thing to the best of my knowledge? The are very sweet and wonderful, no vein to bother with!
I find most other shrimp bland after having these.

Very interesting, I commerical fished on several shrimp boats and have purchased shrimp from several of the bays here in Southeast.
It is amazing at the different taste when you just duck around a point and set the pots somewhere different.

BTW, most fisherman set pots on a long line with about five or six pots to a string. You are limited to 100 pots total. The best pots are two stainless steel rings supporting the netting. They nest together, so take up very little deck space. Most shrimp boats are tiny.

Nan

Good Morning Nan,

Thanks for the info. on Spotted Prawns! I agree with you on the differing tastes of Shrimp. Many yrs. ago I had access to unlimited fresh shrimp from many different Shrimp Boats, I just never had the Spotted Prawns before! But all the Shrimp Boats I got mine from were in the Gulf of Mexico or over on the Coast off FL in the lower Keys area of the Atlantic Ocean, actually did a trip out with them once on the Atlantic, we had a breakfast the next morning of fresh fried fish, grits, and biscuits OH My goodness was that a memorable breakfast and the whole trip was so much fun! The water was so clear in that area of the Atlantic you could literally see the bottom! I Think the only truly bad shrimp I ever tasted came from the Bay area of New Port St. Richie FL, they were tiny, gritty, and lacked flavor.

Wish I were out shrimping or hangin' on the sand in the Keys right about now! Our weather just wants to be gloomy and chilly this week!

Thanks, Cathy