Red blotch on walleye fillet

Not sure what this is or what it’s from. Maybe from not bleeding fish out is my guess? Was on the skin side of a walleye caught earlier today. Left outside to freeze then thawed before cut up.

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I’m not 100 percent sure on if it’s from not bleeding out. But I always bleed mine and they rarely are dark like that

Bruised and filleted alive?

eat it

Looks good to me.
I don’t bleed fish. Prefer to filet kicking.

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Yup that’s blood. That’s the meat that makes fish taste fishy. If you bleed them out they taste much better.

they bleed when I fillet.

biggill wrote:

Yup that’s blood. That’s the meat that makes fish taste fishy. If you bleed them out they taste much better.

Imo no difference.
Remove the lateral line makes the biggest difference.

Justin Larmay wrote:

Left outside to freeze then thawed before cut up.

This why I prefer to keep my whole fish cold, but NOT frozen.

I must be doing something wrong because that didn’t look terribly unusual to me.

Plus if you soaked those fish in water with a little salt over night that would mostly go away.

But I guess it never bothered me if my fish taste like… fish either.

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

Imo no difference.
Remove the lateral line makes the biggest difference.

For walleyes the difference isn’t huge but I prefer them bled out.

I dare you to eat only this grey meat from these coho and see what you think.

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Coho no different than a catfish filet… Remove fat & red meat.

I agree.

But the op fillet a walleye.

Where are your cheeks?

Op’s fillet is hemorrhaged from freezing alive.Not much you can do when ice fishing in cold weather.That’s different from the dark lateral line meat.I remove that when cleaning,just lift the knife a little when removing the skin.

Normally I will bleed fish if possible,but sometimes it is not an option.I even had fish freeze solid when done,and I just put them in freezer to clean later.Other than being a bit slimy when thawed,they were good to go.

milemark_714 wrote:

Op’s fillet is hemorrhaged from freezing alive.Not much you can do when ice fishing in cold weather.

“not much you can do”? On the contrary, don’t leave them where they can freeze. Even if you are out in the elements without a heated shelter, you can keep your fish from freezing, at least for a reasonable amount of time. Pack your caught fish in snow. The snow will insulate the fish.