Ike Jime

[os_tempore]

Ike Jime is a centuries old way of dispatching fish and keeping the muscle from expending all of its ATP (which causes rigor mortis). The idea is to create a better quality meat flavor and kill the fish humanely.

The tools of the trade is a spike and piano wire. Spike the brain (killing the fish), then run the piano wire down the spine, destroying the nerves (stops aberrant signals from using the ATP and causing rigor mortis quickly - though ATP will still degrade over time).

Since I like to mess with tradition, I'm trying to figure out a reliable way to accomplish Ike Jime without the spike. Instead I'm wanting to use a knife or 3 finned arrow head. The wire I'm going to use, but I'll enter the spine from the tail as it's far easier to bend that to the side after a cut than fish around a skill hole.

So, two questions, what knife, dagger, or arrow head should I use, and what size piano wire?

The knifes I've considered is a WE knife OSS dagger and a Maserin 922/T. I've found a few broadheads with a sufficiently thin blade, but the tri bladed ones tend to be thicker (idea being to cut the spinal cord and split the brain in two in one motion).

Suggestions?

 

[NapalmCheese]

Any knife with a stout sharp point.

I use whatever is in my pocket at the time, or my filet knife if that's what I'm carrying.

 

[os_tempore]

Any knife with a stout sharp point.

I use whatever is in my pocket at the time, or my filet knife if that's what I'm carrying.

Of course that'd work, but I'm trying to be fancy.

 

[Aussie B]

Of course that'd work, but I'm trying to be fancy.

I've got and have used a spike, works OK, no better than my cheap fishing knife. Having fished for about 40 years my preferred method is to stick a knife through the gills & cut the throat. Then bend the head back to break the neck. Quick kill & bleeds the fish. Gill & gut pronto then onto ice.

 

[KenHash]

Bleeding a fish (chinuki) and Ikejime (aka Shinkei jime) are two differerent things. Both share the objective of keeping the fish as "fresh" as possible but that's where the similarity ends.

OP- if all you're doing is looking for a replacement for the spike, you can use basically any knife that is narrow enough to hit the brain.
Knives of this type would include the Cold Steel Ti-Lite, Benchmade Fact, and Fairburn Sykes style dagger. Or of you want more precision
perhaps sharp point end screw driver tool. The location is the key.
Some workable alternative tools in this thread:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/animal-vegetable-or-mineral-what-is-this.1822344/

As for "what size piano wire" the question is "what size fish?" The backbone/spinal colum of a mackeral is obviously going to be different from
a yellowfin tuna. You can also invest in a Ikejime tool, that looks like what a cardiovascular surgeon would use to install a stent in your aorta.
I have use a wire hanger straightened out. I cut off the tail and run it from the back end forward. This is the "easy" way to do it. The pros will spike and insert from the head.