Security begins at the front door, and smart locks are a great way to add a big dose of technology to this main method of keeping your home safe.
Instead of completely ditching your key, smart locks provide users a number of other ways to control access to their home with a smartphone. The technology can also interact with other smart home devices and systems like Amazon Alexa and Apple HomeKit.
If you feel overwhelmed by the number of smart lock choices, don’t worry. We’re here to help. Along with a quick primer on the technology, we have five smart lock recommendations depending on your specific needs.
Why Use a Smart Lock?
If you’re not familiar with smart locks, they are similar to other smart home technology available like thermostats and light switches.
Along with the usual deadbolt on the exterior, cylinder, and other parts on the interior of your door, the smart technology takes power from replaceable or rechargeable batteries.
Some options allow you to keep your existing deadbolt, meaning you won’t have to worry about a new key, while others replace the entire locking mechanism.
Once set up, smart locks offer a number of advantages. Along with being able to lock and unlock a door from across the room, or even across the globe, you can quickly and easily share access with friends, family, and many others.
Many smart locks allow you to give a digital key that expires after a specific time set by the user. That’s perfect to allow a maid, handyman, or others one-time access to a home. And it’s definitely much safer than placing a spare key under a rock on your front porch.
Other advantages of smart locks include smartphone notifications and the ability to view exactly when your door was locked and unlocked.
And just like with any technology, there are some downsides to consider as well, including smart lock security and the risk of the technology eventually becoming obsolete.
If you’re looking for the best smart lock available on the market, it’s hard to go wrong with the combination of the August Smart Lock Pro + August Connect.
Unlock many other smart locks, the August option only takes the place of your interior door hardware. That makes it much easier to install, and you won’t have to switch out keys. With just a Phillips screwdriver, you should be able to install the smart lock in just 10 minutes.
Once that’s done, you’ll have more than a few ways to access and control the lock. With the app, users can view a 24/7 feed of the lock and door. It’s also quick and easy to give lock access to other users.
A unique feature is the special DoorSense technology. The integrated sensor will tell users that their deadbolt is engaged properly and that the door is truly closed. That feature allows the lock to instantly activate when the door shuts.
Thanks to the August Connect module that plugs into an open electrical outlet, the lock can be operated away from a home network. It even allows the lock to integrate with both Apple HomeKit and Amazon Alexa smart home protocols.
If HomeKit compatibility is your top priority to integrate a smart lock with other devices, the Schlage Sense Smart Deadbolt offers a number of great features.
While you’ll need to replace all of the lock hardware, it does offer a great addition for non-technical users. Thanks to the 10-digit touchscreen on the exterior, you can program up to 30 different codes that can be organized with the companion iOS app.
With an Apple Home Hub, which can be a HomePod, Apple TV, or iPad that remains at home, you can operate the lock from anywhere. The four AA batteries can provide a year of power under normal use.
Adding smart home technology, especially a smart lock, when living in an apartment or rent home can definitely be problematic. But the Friday Labs Smart Lock is hoping to provide a worthy option in those situations as well as for homeowners.
Claiming to be the smallest retrofit lock on the market, it uses a rechargeable battery for power that lasts anywhere between three to six months with normal usage. To help better blend in with your decor, there are a number of different colors of interior lock shells to select from.
You can control the HomeKit compatible lock with Siri or the Home app on an iPhone or iPad. There is also a companion app for iOS or Android devices.
For anyone who can’t get enough of shopping on Amazon and all of its wide-ranging services, Amazon Key might be for you.
Only available to Amazon Prime members (the many benefits of Prime) in some select areas, the Amazon Key kit includes both an Amazon Cloud Cam and a compatible smart lock from either Kwikset or Yale. If you make the purchase, Amazon will also have a professional install the system for free in your home.
A major plus of the system, as you might guess, deals with package deliveries from Amazon. When a delivery is on the schedule, you’ll receive a notification the morning of, just before, and right after. The Amazon employee will receive one-time access to place your package inside. The high-definition camera records a clip of the delivery for live viewing or to watch later.
While there are some privacy implications with the service, it could be useful if package theft is a problem in your neighborhood.
All of the compatible smart locks can be controlled with a companion app and can be locked or unlocked from anywhere.
If price is your number one concern when looking for a smart lock, the Lockitron Bolt is one of the best smart locks you can buy.
Only replacing the interior hardware, the app allows users to lock and unlock the door, receive notifications, and share access with the companion smartphone app for iOSor Android.
Using Bluetooth technology, users can customize the Bolt to automatically unlock when you return home and are a certain distance away from the lock. Another option, Tap to Unlock, will buzz your smartphone when returning home. Three taps on the screen will unlock the door.
If you want to add Wi-Fi functionality later to access the lock from anywhere, you can also buy an optional bridge.
Final Thoughts on the Best Smart Locks
Just like other smart home technology, smart locks take a familiar part of everyday living and makes it easier and quicker to use.
As you can see, there is a smart lock available for pretty much any situation. And as smart home technology becomes more widespread, more users should be able to take advantage of what a smart lock has to offer.
You may have heard someone describing a chewing-out as "...then he read me the Riot Act." Or maybe your parents threatened to read the Riot Act to you. We kind of know what it means when they say that, but what's behind the idiom? At one time, it had to have made perfect sense to everyone, or else it wouldn't have fallen into common usage.
The idiom, which has been in use for centuries, is generally thought to mean the admonishment of a person or persons who have committed an error in judgment. But the origin of the term "riot act" concerns a very particular wrongdoing—an unlawful public assembly that peace officers of the 16th century fought with a pre-written warning to disperse or face serious repercussions. Like death.
So, it was a legally-worded warning. Strange that an act from England in 1715 would still be used as a common metaphor in the USA today, considering the First Amendment and all. Read how the Riot Act came about and what happened to it at Mental Floss.
Chef pâtissier Damien Herrgott of New York’s Bosie Tea Parlor and Bosie Bakery grew up in Besançon, France, where fresh berries were a welcome first sight of spring after winter snow. He and his grandfather would pick and preserve loads of them from the garden for a bright taste of sunshine through the next fall and winter. Here, you can use fresh or frozen raspberries to make simple, sweet-tart preserves perfect for slathering on tender scones, muffins, or toast.
Moving your elderly parent into your home can be a gift to you and your family. However the lack of resources available makes it difficult to prepare. Here are tips to make the transition as smooth as possible and make the most of your new arrangement.
In January, the British government announced its intention to extend their plastic bag tax to all shops. As of now, only establishments which have more than 250 employees need to impose the charge on single-use plastic bags. In the United States, certain states or cities even go beyond a tax and put an outright ban on them. But the UK government's own research suggests that this is actually bad for the environment.
Back in 2017, we introduced you to Primephonic, the Spotify for classical music. And it turns out that there’s a movie equivalent of Primephonic. It’s called FilmStruck, and this streaming service specializes in classic movies. With Netflix focusing more on original content, FilmStruck may just be a viable alternative to Netflix for those of you who enjoy old cinema. In this article, we’re going to explain everything you need to know about FilmStruck. What films are available? How much does it cost? What are its pros and cons? And what platforms is it available on? Let’s find out. What Is...
Back in the 2000s, iTunes was the premier app for playing and managing your music. It was lightweight, fast, and offered a range of features that were previously unheard of in common music software. Even steadfast Windows users downloaded the app in droves. But over the course of the last decade, the app has been knocked off its perch. Apple has progressively attempted to transform it into a catch-all program for every type of multimedia. Today, iTunes a bloated mess. Most people wouldn’t include it in their list of best music players. But the situation is recoverable. Of course, much...
It’s 2018 and your resume needs to reflect that. With the right apps, you can create a modern, good-looking CV to apply for jobs. At this point, most resume makers know how to get past Applicant Tracking Systems. To stand out, you need more, like good design, or an online profile. But in the quest to be different, you need to ensure that you aren’t forgetting the basic elements of a resume either. 1. CV.Me: Simplest Free Resume With a Shareable Link In 2018, you need a resume that can be printed as well as shared via a link. CV.Me...
Welcome to the MakeUseOf Guide to Using a Static Site Generator. In this guide we’ll describe what a static site generator (SSG) is, why you’d want to use one, and how to build a brand new site with it. Some of the details we’ll explore:This guide is available to download as a free PDF. Download Use a Static Site Generator to Build a Quick Website now. Feel free to copy and share this with your friends and family. Table of Contents Introduction to Static Site Generators (SSGs) Why Should You Use An SSG? | How Do SSGs Work? | What...
Stand at just the right vista on the shore of Lake Merritt in Oakland, California, and you'll see what appears to be a big island filled with dead trees, dense shrubs, and majestic birds—depending on the day, maybe double-crested cormorants, grebes, or black-crowned night herons. But walk a handful of paces and the mass will separate, revealing a five-piece archipelago where thousands of waterfowl make a home on their way across the lake or the world.
Although the archipelago is tantalizingly near both the shore and the lake’s boating area, the general public is not allowed within 50 yards, which gives the islands a mysterious appeal. The handful of parks workers and volunteers who have been lucky enough to walk its grounds describe the experience as a rare gift.
“It’s a visceral feeling—I could compare it to my first time traveling overseas, getting off the plane and realizing it’s the same sky, but you look around and everything is totally different,” says James Robinson, who grew up in Oakland and directs the nonprofit Lake Merritt Institute. “It’s a sensory overload, an experience of learning of how to be in the moment.”
The islands, the first of which was sculpted nearly 100 years ago from leftover construction dirt, reflect the political and ecological history of not just the lake, which is the nation’s oldest wildlife refuge, but also the city around it. They are a sanctuary within a sanctuary, hidden just out of view of the street, waiting to be discovered. “When you come inside the park, you see a ton of very cool-looking birds,” says Robinson. “You think, how is all this nature here in Oakland?”
Sitting nearly at the geographical center of the San Francisco Bay tidal estuary ecosystem, Lake Merritt is not actually a lake, but a lagoon, degraded for over two centuries by urban development. The Bay estuary, with its mix of salt and freshwater, is so perfectly-located and unusually biodiverse that it is considered both hemispherically and internationally significant by conservation groups; dozens of species of birds have, for centuries, stopped there to rest on long journeys down the Pacific Flyway, a migratory route that stretches from Alaska to Patagonia. And within this already unusual ecosystem, the lagoon is unique, its calmer inland environment and smoother waters providing a serene counterpart to rough coastal shores.
Throughout the early 1800s, as Oakland’s original city center grew a few miles away, on stolen Ohlone land, the lagoon became a sewage dump, an olfactory legacy that planners are still dealing with. The slow march toward cleanup began in 1869, when Samuel Merritt, a wealthy former doctor and Oakland’s 13th mayor, convinced the city council to install a dam, hoping regulated water levels would help hide the stench. A lake was born.
Unfortunately for Merritt’s substantial waterfront real estate investments, so was an ideal hunting ground. The lake exploded into an aviary wonderland of actual sitting ducks. Constant gunshot noise and the threat of stray bullets drove Merritt, on behalf of his wealthy neighbors, to barge his way through California’s bureaucracy and demand the lake become a nature preserve. In 1870, it was enshrined as North America’s first wildlife refuge, birthed more of capitalism than conservation.
Merritt died in 1890, but another mayor, John Davie, took up the birds’ cause upon his election in 1915. Nearly four decades as a refuge had made the lake a popular local attraction—more of a people sanctuary than a wildlife sanctuary—and Davie wanted to give the birds back some of their space. Construction of a 20,000-square-foot Duck Island finished on May 9, 1923; the mayor’s opponents, who considered dedicating an island to birds frivolous, called it Davie’s Folly.
Lake Merritt was already on its way to becoming the city’s “crown jewel,” and soon the island itself was a point of civic pride, with every improvement toward a resplendent sanctuary covered by the Oakland Tribune. Locals in 1924 celebrated the first batch of “native-son” ducks born on its shores, a brood that went on to star in a serialized radio play set on Duck Island that aired every Monday at 2 p.m. throughout the 1920s. “The Lake Merritt Ducks” was so popular that every episode got a full-column recap in the paper and, occasionally, fan art. Socialites even took inspiration from the island ducks for Mardi Gras costumes.
Meanwhile, the real birds were learning that the island and surrounding shores were safe places for stopovers free of land-based predators. Beginning in the 1930s, researchers from the U.S. Biological Survey banded ducks for tracking and study, an endorsement of the lake’s unique status: There were few other places that so reliably had so many birds so easily accessible.
“If you go to the lake today and you’re unaccustomed to it, you’ll be overwhelmed by how many birds there are, but in the 1940s and ’50s they were counting 4,000 a day that they didn’t get the day before,” says Hilary Powers, a birder who leads walking tours of the lake for the Golden Gate Audubon Society. “Tens of thousands over the course of the season.”
It was during this era in the mid-20th century that the birds got their most significant champion, although this time, he was motivated by conservation. In 1948, Paul Covel, a former zookeeper from Massachusetts, joined the Parks Department as the city naturalist.
“He was a self-taught ornithologist of the first degree, so in love with the variety of birds and so in love with the lake,” says Stephanie Benavidez, an Oakland native whom Covel hired to work at the refuge nearly five decades ago. “He saw his role as protecting the legacy of the sanctuary and carrying it into the future.”
All of Oakland’s natural environs were under Covel’s purview, but his avocation was the refuge. Between 1953 and 1954, he oversaw the construction of four more islands, this time from landscaping dirt, to join the original one. The first was also rejuvenated. Covel hoped to diversify the bird population, so plants—including Himalayan blackberry bushes, star acacias, eucalyptus trees, and bottlebrush—varied slightly island-to-island to allow birds to pick the arrangement that suited them best.
Wigeons, pintails, scaups, and goldeneyes began to nest alongside the mallards and canvasbacks. Some years, according to Benavidez, nearly 150 different species appeared over the course of a season. Covel and his staff revelled in explaining them all to visitors. “He knew the importance of making people feel responsible for helping to protect the beauty of what was going on around them,” says Benavidez.
But the variety did not last. Two decades later, as Covel prepared to retire, the bird population had declined to match an uptick in Oakland’s human population. Marshes nearby had turned to landfills for new housing stock, and a once-robust park staff dwindled to a handful. New birds continued to arrive, but their populations never matched the sheer volume of the mid-century flocks.
Benavidez took over as lead naturalist from her mentor in 1975, the same year that a raccoon infestation in the nearby Audubon Canyon Ranch nature preserve forced egrets there to relocate. They chose the islands, white egrets gracing tree branches and snowy ones burrowing into the bushes, pale feathers set off by the verdant green of the underbrush. They were soon joined by black-crowned night herons, and the islands “became a vivid rookery of bird life,” remembers Benavidez.
Meanwhile, the islands attracted birders by the thousands, from across the country and the world, who would stake out vantages for spotting a Barrow’s goldeneye or a bufflehead duck from much closer than they were accustomed to at home, or even in other sanctuaries. “The ease of seeing things here is unique,” says Powers. “The birds are just right there. They’ll give you the stink eye from [a few] feet away.”
The egret/heron regime destroyed much of the islands’ landscaping. It turned out the eucalyptus trees Covel had planted were no match for guano, or for the brackish mixture roots sucked up when rainwater muddled the lake’s natural saline content. By the early 2000s the trees had gone bare and died, leaving the herons and egrets without foliage for roosting. They moved out.
“It’s been a slow drama over the years,” says Powers, one that continued in 2003, when construction on the Bay and Carquinez Bridges evicted scores of double-crested cormorants from nooks underneath the roadways. Being seabirds that bask in direct heat, they started appearing on the islands’ tree branches, which were conveniently left shorn for maximum sun exposure by the previous occupants.
Since then, the permanent residents have predominantly been cormorants, although naturalists are trying to bring back the herons using decoys and recorded bird calls. Throughout all this, the islands themselves have proven robust, requiring only occasional maintenance and never additional dirt. In 2006, the city spent $1 million to shore up the edges, replace invasive plant species, install a new irrigation system, and add some living trees to attract foliage-loving bird species.
The biggest problem remains human beings. San Francisco’s decade-long housing crisis has continuously pushed new residents into Oakland, and those people every year push more and more trash into the lake, which can clog the irrigation system and hurt birds. Dissatisfied with being relegated to the shore, some visitors have begun flying drones across the islands to get closer to birds that are already unusually close. “People new to the city sometimes don’t seem to understand how to interact with the wildlife,” says Robinson.
While Oakland voters consistently prioritize the lake in funding measures, nothing can reverse the years of decline of surrounding habitats or increased stress of urbanization. Paul Covel warned of this on the occasion of the refuge’s centennial in 1970, reminding readers of Tribune that his work hadn’t truly “saved” the lake. “If we are to preserve Lake Merritt and the waterfowl refuge without gradual erosion of their natural values, we shall need your help,” he said.
Benavidez, who is now 65 and has been with the Parks Department for 48 years, takes after her mentor: She doesn’t think it’s too late. “The lake and the animals have adapted best they can to the sprawl and the Disneyfication, and this is what Paul was trying to get the staff to understand—it’s our job to get people to become responsible,” she says. “Once they’re responsible and fall in love, they will preserve and protect.”
It’s not feasible for many of us to ditch email altogether. But at least we can get our inboxes to deal with the bulk of our emails for us. If you’re a Mac user who uses Apple Mail, you’ll need to set up the right rules (otherwise known as filters) to streamline your experience. We have six useful rules to help you get started, but first we’ll walk you through the basics of creating rules in your Mac’s native email client. How to Create a Rule in Apple Mail Hit the shortcut Cmd + Comma to bring up the Mail...
iOS/Android: Spotify works great for music sharing and third-party plugins. Apple Music works great for offline play. So I juggle both. It feels a bit like shared custody, but it’s a lot easier thanks to the mobile apps SongShift and Stamp, which efficiently move playlists from one service to the other.
Photographer Nick Fancher is known for combining thriftiness and creativity into eye-catching portrait lighting, and he has even written two books on the subject, titled Studio Anywhere and Studio Anywhere 2. If you like workshops more than reading, Fancher just shared this free 2-hour video of his Studio Anywhere workshop.
Over the course of the 2 hours of instruction, Fancher walks through photographing the models with a number of different setups and techniques, offering pointers throughout.
If after watching the video you’d like to see more of Fancher’s instruction, he has a “Studio Anywhere 2: The Video” available through his website for $75.
While you hopefully never have to take advantage of it, your device’s warranty can save you hundreds of dollars on a new one if something happens to it. Even on premium Apple devices, hardware can fail and render your computer or phone useless. When your iPhone, Mac, or other Apple product suddenly stops working, you should check the warranty status right away to see if Apple will take care of it. Here’s how to use Apple’s website to check the warranty of your device. How to Check the Warranty Status of Any Apple Device Head to Apple’s Check Coverage website....
I want to believe. I want you to believe. Something. Anything. Crave it. Authenticity. The real. Feeling. To me, this is what is most important. For the absence of the real is fiction. I point the camera outward–and inward–as I frame and re-frame my reality–and yours. Choices. A coming to an understanding. This is what my deconstruction feels like. Yes, deconstruction.
Short Bio
Ryan was born in the United States in 1985. He is based in Florida and works as a lawyer and photographer. He hopes to publish in the upcoming year his first book, Deconstruction.
Lightroom continues to be one of the most popular photo editing programs for photographers, and for good reason. Among the many robust features is the ability to create presets so you can easily apply the same edits over and over again to multiple images. A preset is essentially a one-click option for each and every edit you apply to any given photo. While you can spend hours editing your photos, by creating a preset, you can cut down on your photo editing time in a significant way. The great thing about using presets is that it also allows you to...
In medical parlance, “never events” are medical errors that should never happen. However, as we are about to find out, they do happen more than doctors would probably like to admit. As of 2011, 29 incidents are classified as never events. They include but are not limited to patients falling off hospital beds, doctors using […]
If you still don’t get what artificial intelligence is all about, you may want to start by exploring these Google AI experiments. That may just interest you enough to take the next big step: learning more about AI. Google has designed a free online course to teach you the fundamentals of machine learning, and it’s accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Google’s free Machine Learning course doesn’t ask you to jump straight in—you can use the filters at the beginning to narrow your focus according to your needs, including the type of content you would like to learn from and...
Hey what’s that song from? Ask MetaFilter commenters named 52 different tunes, mostly classical and big-band, that you’ll recognize instantly but might have trouble naming. And we assembled them into a Spotify playlist, along with songs from here and here.
Nobody wants their fishing trip to end before making it to the ramp.
Trailer maintenance is a crucial piece to the boating puzzle. Just as with anything, proper care will increase the life of your trailer, and avoid problems when in tow. Try out these maintenance tips for best results.
Rinse, Rinse, Rinse
The hose is a necessity when it comes to proper trailer maintenance. All of the salt from the boat tends to run down onto the trailer when washed, so I like to rinse mine off after the boat is clean. A strong hose nozzle is also crucial. Give the complete trailer a good spray, and give the rims, and hubs a little more love than the rest. Don’t be afraid to get under the trailer either, spraying the backside of the hubs, U-bolts, axle and bunk brackets. Even better, if you have a fresh water ramp nearby, give the trailer a quick dunk. This works two-fold, removing all salt, and allowing you to flush your motor as well.
Prepare and Protect
A spare tire (if not two), lug nuts and wrench, marine grease, and even a spare hub should be in your trailer repair arsenal, especially when traveling long distances. When not in use, be sure to cover or store your spares inside. We all know what direct sunlight does to a tire. Be sure to check your tires on the trailer for cracks and dry rot as well.
When it comes to hubs, be sure they are well greased. Using waterproof marine grease, add and repack the bearings every year or so. Be sure not to over fill though, this grease will expand with heat, often slinging grease all over your rim when trailering. Keeping a spare hub on hand can make a roadside swap much easier, instead of trying to repack the bearings.
If running a trailer with brakes, be sure to check the brake fluid reservoir level before embarking on your trip. Broken brake lines can lead to fluid leakage and ultimately brake failure. You don’t need brake failure when the person in front of you decides to slam on their brakes.
A good nozzle on your hose can reach all those hard to get places, where rust and corrosion breed.
Lights and More
Lights seem to be the most common problem when it comes to boat trailers. Many trailer companies have strayed away from the old-school bulb lights, converting over to waterproof LED’s. If you haven’t made the switch, it’s never a bad idea. Prices are lower than ever for LED’s, I recently picked up a pair for $20 on Amazon.com.
When hooking up lights, BE SURE to use heat-shrink butt connectors. These will create a seal, not allowing water into the connection, preventing corrosion. These are a common reason for trailer light failure, and a cheap fix. Fuses are another common failure point. These typically pop when the trailer is not grounded well. Be sure there is no corrosion and the ground wire is secured well. If this doesn’t solve the problem, you make have a short throughout the trailer. It’s a good idea to keep both butt connectors and fuses on hand at all times.
I carry a size 3 large safety pin everyday wherever I go. I personally carry the safety pin on my keychain for over 3 years. The safety pin is so light I don’t even notice the additional item. I have learned to rely on this pin for many unexpected uses. Some examples of how I have used the safety pin include :ejecting the Simm card from phone; clearing the pocket lint from the headphone jack on a device; extracting a sliver from a finger skin; putting a vent hole into a container; pinning a blanket closed whiles covering a child in cold outdoor weather; fishing a drawstring back through a bag or sweatshirt; pinning the hotel curtains together in hotel room; keeping shirt buttoned on a dress shirt when the button cracked; a scraper; applying super glue to something, and many more. I continue to find new uses everyday.
How to care for your catch and wow your dinner guests.
Gag grouper and triggerfish are buried in ice to ensure the best tasting fillets.
Not many of us treat our meat fish as we should, and there are steps you can take to improve the dinner you make for your family.
First off, understand it’s the blood and body fluid that make fish taste “fishy.” Generally speaking, pelagic and other bloody fish such as red snapper taste stronger than deep water bottom fish whose flesh is firmer and carries less blood than most shallow water species. That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot you can do to make your fish taste better.
For starters, you need to understand that fish bruise just like you do. Drop a fish to the deck, and you’ll often be able to see the bruises afterwards at the cleaning table. A bruise is nothing more than blood rushing to the site of an injury to help the healing process.
Secondly, learn to bleed most of the fish you catch. I never really thought about bleeding anything but tuna, until I hooked a gag grouper one day, and his back third was stolen by a barracuda. I am telling you that was the whitest meat, best tasting gag grouper ever. Now I can’t tell you every fish we catch gets bled, but I will tell you that we take far better care of what we keep than we ever thought of 20 years ago, and there’s no question we are eating better fish.
The whole process starts with ice. We usually carry at least 80 pounds of crushed ice in 20-pound bags. When we leave the dock bag number one is broken open and scattered in the box to lower the box temperature. In our area we catch a lot of blackfin tuna, and we’re ready when the first one comes aboard. A tiny incision is cut behind each pectoral fin, all the way to the bone. Then a short piece of small diameter rope is looped around the tail, and it is dropped back overboard to pump blood out while we set back up, putting our baits out. Once the fish is no longer pumping blood, it is buried in crushed ice in an upright position as if it was swimming. This keeps the last of the blood from settling on either side. Only in the last few years have we started making the same cuts on mahi and wahoo. I was recently shocked when we were wrapping up a trip during which we had done pretty well on blackfins, but had been pestered all day by bonito. While we cleaned up, the mate prepared us all a platter of sashimi. I was gobbling my umpteenth piece when the mate informed me it was bonito. It was great. I would have never believed it if I hadn’t tried it. Obviously it had been bled like a blackfin.
Once the fishing is done, the box is emptied, and the fish are layered with the ice in between each layer of fish. Fish are much easier to fillet when they are ice cold, as the meat is firmer. I always make sure to leave the plug out of my cooler. I want my fish to ride home either packed in ice, or a saltwater slush. Fresh water makes their flesh soft, so I don’t want them soaking in melted ice.
It’s not only offshore fish that benefit from bleeding. I live on one of the great flounder and redfish spots in Northeast Florida. When I catch a red or flounder I will poke my finger through the soft skin beneath the gill cover and pull out the jugular vein. Blood’s gonna squirt, but the meat will be white when you clean it.
As for filleting fish, I have a method which gives me the best-tasting fillet possible. I always work my fillet knife down to the ribcage and around it. That way, I never allow stomach acids and other contents to come in contact with my fillets. Make sure you spend the extra dollars to get a good fillet knife. Learn how to sharpen it, and keep it sharp. I prefer a stiff blade, but I know some great fish cleaners who insist on a flexible blade.
It’s also best to get on the cleaning chores quickly. Resist the urge to rack up catches and let them warm up in the sun while you shoot pictures. Instead, take a few fish out of the box, fillet them and then take a few more out. Some fishermen pull the skin off the fish (common practice with dolphin), but I prefer to slice the fillet away from the skin. I raise the knife about an eighth of an inch off the skin and make my cut. That way, all the membrane and much of the red meat stay with the skin, and don’t end up on the dinner plate.
Finish off your fillet by cutting out the center line bones and any remaining red meat. I’m betting you and your crew will love the improvement on your dinner table. FS
First Published Florida Sportsman Magazine March 2017
Gag grouper and triggerfish are buried in ice to ensure the best tasting fillets.