The Art of Fish Preservation: Gyotaku

Beard’s ‘A New Manner for Preserving Fish’ is unnecessarily messy. We have to get on a plane in a few hours, so we’d rather keep the ‘fish preservation’ botchery at a minimum; I don’t feel like concealing fish parts back to California. Instead, there is a simpler method of yore that we’ll use to record our catch, a small catfish, Ford and Chas’ first catch, a trophy day on the boy’s time line.

There were plans to round out this first exposure to fishing with a saltwater experience, but Galveston became windy and COLD. We didn’t pack enough parkas, so we cheated and rounded out our collection with a different type of fish, the bought kind, from the latino supergrocery, Fiesta Market.

The grocers wouldn’t let us take home a live fish; the fishmonger had to kill it first. From behind the glass and piles of shrimp and tuna steaks, the boys watched the fishmonger as he took a pair of broad wire clips and cut out the fish’s gills. Even fifteen feet away, between layers of seafood distraction, the blunt dissection made Ford a squeamish, and he turned his back to the fishmonger, grimacing. Chas stood watching, riveted. Scratching our heads, we had to relay in broken Spanish what we were going to do with one single Tilapia, and the fishmonger was amused to find that we were going to use it for for several purposes: to teach the boys to clean a fish, to learn fish anatomy, to make fish prints, and learn to fillet the meat.

Beard had suggested one manner of preserving fish, right there in the wild, after a good catch. He recommended trying to bisect the fish, fillet it carefully (to save the meat), leaving the skin, head and fins intact for mounting later. This messy business can be sidestepped by doing what the Japanese fishermen began 200years ago: Gyotaku, which The Kennedy Center describes in an online teacher’s reference that includes its background:

Gyotaku (gyo=fish, taku=rubbing) was invented in the early 1800’s in Japan by the fishermen to record their catch. This was their livelihood (not sport fishing as we have today) and they could document the size and types of fish caught and still take it back to be sold or eaten. Also, certain fish in Japan are revered and they would take rubbings of these fish and then place them back in the water. Japanese fishermen took newsprint, ink and brush out to sea with them. On occasion, old newspapers printed with water-soluble ink were also used as the ink would bleed with the moisture from the fish and record its shape (a print) on the newspaper. Prints were brought back and displayed in the homes of the fishermen either on walls or in journals to be used as conversation pieces and to relate proud and heroic stories of the catch. Japanese fishing magazines still hold contests where the judging is done from Gyotaku’s. It has also developed into an art form; many created prints for their beauty, and added artistic elements.

There are some beautiful examples of Gyotaku to be found:

Naoki Hayashi, Gyotaku artist, demonstrates the technique on the Hawaii BeachComber’s Blog.

From the artist Greg Aragon’s website.

The boys carried no assumptions, they just stood by while Dad began teaching. He started first with the printmaking, enlisting an extra hand as needed, and we began with the Tilapia. It has a nice broad side but prickly dorsal fins, requiring finesse.

Required materials: paper towels, waterbase ink, brush and can, styrofoam board, fabric pins, paper (or fabric to print on) And a fish.

You begin by taking a paper towel and cleaning the slimy protective coat off the fish, so the ink will adhere better.

Carefully, flare the fins and pin them down carefully to the thick styrofoam board. Dad did this because –get this– neither of the boys felt like touching the fish! Lame.

Take the inky brush and lightly cover the fish from head to tail. Too much ink will make a silhouette print; less ink will provide some surface detail to emerge.

Lay the paper down upon the fish, being careful not to let it slide once it’s down

Carefully press down the paper or fabric upon and around the fish, transferring the ink from the fish to the paper. You can enlist help!

And there you go! Your beautiful fish, forever. Hang a few of these with your other trophies!

You can try other colors, too. Imagine all the possibilities: color gradations, painting atop the print, different colored papers!….

And here’s the catfish. It was a bit more challenging because of its roundness, but they carefully wrapped the paper around the sides of the fish to get a good print.

The boys handled the dissection with a mixture of curiosity and horror. Apparently this anatomical study was muddled, by comparison, to the Body Worlds exhibit that Ford enjoyed the day before. Maybe it was the clear green effluent that squirted out of the sliced Tilapia gall. Or maybe it was the softness of the innards, themselves. Nothing they held was plastinated or preserved, but fluid and lifelike.

They have a lot to learn about fishing. Hopefully in time their connections will sharpen between food and mouth. I want them to understand the circle of life this way and that we are all essentially, if not ultimately in a vital way, connected. Maybe with this understanding they will have a clearer voice when it comes to decisions regarding conservation and land use, which dish washing detergent to use, and how to dispose of different waste.
Not to mention which bait to use for each particular fish!