Lots of thoughts on this subject Gimp......

I can take a little fishy flavor but my crew cannot tolerate any, period. They have become completely spoiled (I have ruined them).

First off you must start with quality filets. That means diet. Some of the notably good fish I have had have been largemouth bass. Yes indeed! But they were caught from a gravel pit with a predominant crayfish diet. It is the reason that smallmouths are so much better than their cousins IMO.

What makes fish strong is blood and fat. I remove ALL dark meat on my fish........that strip along the lateral line is often overlooked. Not by me. It takes a sharp knife and a willingness to not be overly fine. I waste some meat, I have a life and am busy so whisk, whisk. The scraps are fed to my 4 dogs which all love raw fish.

Secondly you must freeze your fish in water (not salt water). The water must completely encase the fish. A vacuum sealer also works quite well......air is the enemy and freezer burn will soon develop.

Thaw your fish under cold water. Hot water will cook them.

And now the coupe-de-gracie'..........I soak my fish overnight in a mixture of milk and italian dressing. Perfecto!! Imparts a nice little flavor to them while supposedly pulling out any fishiness. Who knows? But it seems to work........(of course it is always nice to start out with fresh snapper and grouper  ). I have converted many a person who thought they "didn't like fish" but were to polite to refuse the dinner invitation. I would only find out later when they were asking for seconds that they were reluctant to come to dinner when they found out I was serving fish. When you come to MT's house you know whats on the menu

details, details, details monsuier (thats french) Gimp.

ALL dark meat must vanish.......and is it my imagination or are you dismissing the secret ingredient......Italian dressing? Gotta have it. The super secret patented formula, invented by yours truly, and bestowed upon your person because you are a cripple, is the marinade of milk AND italian dressing.

I have always heard "soak your fish in milk" and I have also heard "soak your fish in Italian dressing" but........being the incredibly imaginative type that I am I decided on a whim to use both. No explosion occurred other than on the table. It really does work wonders, honest, would I steer you wrong 

BTW......do not rinse off the marinade before use. The milk helps coatings stick better and if baking or broiling is your thing that is fine to up

Assuming you bleed them out before cleaning I'd not worry about the lateral line. It sounds like you're already doing it right if there is such a thing. Anything done in cooking preparation will only serve to mask the unwanted effects of decomposing fish flesh.

If fish caught and cleaned in the morning can be kept a day in the canoe with no ill effects, I'd suspect the flaw is coming during frozen storage. As I recall frozen always had more of a fishy flavor than fresh anyway.

FWIW - My current freezer is a horrible self defrosting model. Ice cream may be rock hard or way too soft depending on timing. Needless to say we don't keep things in our freezer very long. That and length of storage may be something to consider. Is there ever frost inside the bag?

Gimp there is no magic amounts. I just cover the fish with milk and splash a generous amount of italian seasoning in with it. It makes a curious combo with the oil in the dressing pooling into droplets and doing all sorts of weird things. Surprisingly enough the fish doesn't taste anything like the dressing at all......in fact I can detect no discernible or distinct type of flavor other than it is quite tasty.

Do remove the fat and blood infested lateral line, it tastes bad, period. Fat and blood is what makes fish taste a bit strong. Fat is usually stored around the belly (sounds oddly familiar  ) and the blood is usually concentrated along the lateral line. A simple "V" cut takes care of it quite easily.

Some fish smell quite strong right out of the lake....Gar are a fine example, so are carp (although both are eaten with abandon in certain circles). We have tried to eat carp on occasion caught out of cold, clean waters.....all without much success. I have no doubt that someone who really is familiar with them and knows how to properly bleed, clean and cook them could probably work culinary magic.

MT is dead on. get rid of the lateral line, all the brown stuff, and any white skin areas. i dont like the lower belly meat area, to me that is the WORST part. i always rinse my fillets in cold water also, using my hands to 'scrub' them. getting all of the oils/slime/scales/blood off.

i suspect that the fishy tasting ones are the pike. i ALWAYS clean my knife between filleting and skinning. pike have the worst slime (moreso in winter) and that has a really bad fishy taste. making sure you dont run a dirty(slimey) knife through clean meat is important.

ive never soaked my fish in anything, and only freeze them in plain water. ive heard that soaking fish in milk, saltwater, and some weird vinegar mixture (italian dressing has this so it makes sense) help to remove the fishy taste.