Interactive lesson

Harvesting and processing fish, step by step

Interactive lesson: the autumn pond harvest from lowering the water to the freezer — the seine net, clean water against the muddy taste, humane stunning, cleaning and scoring carp.

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The whole lesson as text

1. When and how to lower the water

The main harvest is in October and November, and it starts a week earlier, at the monk.

October and November — The main harvest is when the water is 8–14 °C (46–57 °F). The fish are calm and the meat chills easily.
Start in good time — Start lowering the water 5–10 days before the harvest. On the monk take out one board a day, or lower the elbow little by little.
Slowly, 10–20 cm — Let the water fall 10–20 cm (4–8 in) a day, so the fish move towards the deeper part and the catch pit. For the last two days the water is only in the channel and the pit.
Draining without harm — Drained water carries silt and nutrients. Let it out slowly, through a grille, over a meadow, a settling pond or into a ditch, never suddenly into a stream.

Why: In summer, when the water is warm, fish tire quickly and run out of oxygen in the bucket, and the meat is hard to chill. A pond drained suddenly in one day leaves fish stranded in puddles on the bottom.

Plan the harvest by the forecast: a cloudy, cool morning, no frost and no strong wind.
If you have a discharge consent or permit, keep to its conditions for draining (H30-01 Fish on the homestead: pond or aquaponics).

2. Equipment and people

Harvest day needs several pairs of hands and equipment ready before dawn.

Nets — A seine net 1.5 times longer than the width of the pond, with 20–30 mm mesh for table fish. With it, 2–3 hand nets (landing nets).
Tubs and air — Tubs, vats or barrels of clean water from the inlet, not from the mud. With them, an air pump or an oxygen cylinder.
Waders and belt — Waist or chest waders for everyone who goes into the water. Waders full of water drag you down: wear a belt over them, and never go alone into deeper water.
Gloves — Water used by rats can carry leptospirosis (Weil's disease). Gloves, cuts covered, hands washed afterwards. Anyone who gets a high temperature, muscle pains and a headache goes to a doctor and says they worked in a pond.

Why: Harvesting at noon in the sun, with no tubs of clean water, suffocates fish before they are sorted. For a pond up to 300 m² three people are enough; for 1,000 m², 4–6.

Don't go into mud above the knee without a pole and another person on the bank.
Children at the harvest stay with an adult, away from the catch pit.