How do you bleed a tuna?

Question

I was told that when you catch a tuna, you must bleed it straight away. How do you do this? Do you cut its head off and hang it upside down, or is there a specific technique?

Answer 1

Cut the base of the gill rakers (at the bottom of the gill opening) and hang or hold the fish upside down until the bleeding stops. On the San Diego sport boats, the smaller tuna (5-40 lbs or so) can be dropped headfirst in a gunny sack or hung from the sack hooks. With larger fish, clipping the gill rakers is all you can do. Cut them as soon as the fish comes on board, and its heart will pump out a lot of the blood.

Hacking the head off would work, but it's a lot of work and can be kind of messy.

On the other hand, you don't have to do this -- unbled tuna is still pretty good eating.

Answer 2

the easiest and most effective way to do this is bring it in the boat, take a sharp serrated edge knife, and whack it's head off right away. this usually makes a mess of the deck, but bleeds the tuna out very quickly.

after a little while, the tuna can be thrown in a cooler or someplace cold. the fish will continue bleeding, but most of the blood will have exited onto the deck and can just be hosed away.

dont wear good shoes :)

Answer 3

I've never done it on a Tuna but for most animals if they die before all the blood comes out, the blood will clot and not come out.

What I have done is cut their gills or cut the underside closest to the tail up to the spine. Then dangle them in the water to let it all flow out when their heart is still beating. For bluefish, my dad used to just halfway cut off their head.

Answer 4

My dad once told me when you kill a deer cut it's throat right away. I have since learned that this doesn't help because the heart stops working. I imagine the same thing for a fish.

Answer 5

I'm not sure about tuna but to bleed a catfish you cut under his tail just ahead of its fin and about an inch deep.

Answer 6

Cut its neck and put it away in some cool place.