I debated whether to post this under food or the travel section but since world famous sawyer and part time hush puppy fry cook, WDH, suggested posting it under food I am basically re-posting this.
If you have a real fond memory of a particular fish fry or cookout especially with pictures please post them here.
The best fish I ever remember eating was at a remote fishing village in central Cameroon in West, Central Africa in February 2008 while on a private tour throughout much of the country with my free-lance photographer wife, Becky, a local guide lady, Billie, and our driver, Henry. The village was on a big lake formed by a dam built to generate Hydro power. We heard about the village but were going to pass due to the round about road to get there then the security guards on the dam said they'd just open it up and let us drive over it as a short cut. We toured the village taking pictures and it was lunch time and we were hot, tired and hungry so we stopped to eat.
Here is my journal entry for 19 February 2008 of the trip:
We go up to the village to look for some cool water or Cokes and find a couple of small stores. We buy a large cold Coke from a lady nursing an infant behind a chicken wire screen. In front of her store we see a lady cooking fish over charcoal and a wire grill. She is also cooking long tubes of cassava in leaves. We buy several of the fish which look and taste like our bluegills. I assume they are Tilapia. They have been scaled, gutted, heads left on and scored on several places to speed the cooking. The lady spread locally made peanut oil on them before and after grilling them We first buy three which she puts on a piece of brown paper from a used cement sack. These three fish cost 500 cfa or $1.10. Becky buys several tomatoes from the adjacent open air stand to eat with hers. We sit on a concrete step in the shade nearby and eat our fish. Across from us is another small shop which I later learn is the village pharmacy. The vendor rushes out to loan us a wooden stool about 15" tall by ten inches square at the base and six inches square at the top. This is very generous and thoughtful of him. I eat my fish and I find that it is very tasty so I go back and order two more and eat them. This time the lady serves them on a thin plastic plate since she sees we are dining in the area and we are repeat customers. I finish mine and go back and get Becky another. She enjoys her meal of fish and fresh tomatoes. When we get ready to leave we return the pharmacist's stool and thank him for his kindness.
We return the lady's plastic plates and leave the village again crossing the power dam and saying goodbye to the Security guard. To this day I can't ever remember eating better fish than these grilled over a tire wheel full of charcoal on this dirty, dusty alley of a street in this unknown fishing village in Cameroon.
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This the young lady cooking fish to sell. The paper in front of her is an old cement sack. She'd tear off a piece and put the fish on it to serve it. You can see her dishes and paraphernalia. Note the little hand made stool she is sitting on. Her skirt is just a simple piece of colorful African printed cloth wrapped around her waist and she is wearing a western style T-shirt she bought somewhere. She has the typical cloth around her head which is likely required by local health code (Yeah!).
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/38064/IMG_9161.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1568811599)
Fish cooking on the grill made from an old tire rim laid on its side and cheap, low-grade charcoal fanned with a piece of cardboard to keep it burning. You can see the fish, some just put on to cook, others nearly done, with slits in the side to release the steam as they cook. Her kitchen knife is on the left side of the grill. The fish have been rubbed with local peanut oil and Maggi seasoning. The green tubes in the upper left corner of the picture is a cassava flour and palm oil paste/dough wrapped in local leaves of some kind and wrapped with jute cord. When cooked it makes a fairly tasteless bread stick
BTW - approximately a week later we got caught up in a coups attempt when the government tried to raise fuel prices. We had to hunker down until the government and rebels negotiated a cease fire of sorts and we escaped the country on 29 February 2008. I still miss the place.
Okay, back to 2019 - I still say this was the best fish I have ever eaten. Maybe we were just really hungry, maybe it was the atmosphere but looking at the pictures still make my mouth water.
A poor second around here would be a good meal of WV catfish fillets fried brown in corn oil and served with baked beans, cole slaw and cheese grits. If I were back in central Florida we'd hope to have swamp cabbage on the menu too.
Swamp cabbage ??? I have never heard of eating that or at least what we refer to as swamp cabbage. My best meal was at a small lake in central B.C. I caught a 3 lb rainbow trout and grilled it over an open fire. My companion, a retired CO, declined. He loved fishing but wouldn't eat them!! ::) Pepper and a squirt of lemon juice along with pan fries and sliced tomato made a meal fit for a king.
@sawguy21 (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=1763) ,
Sounds like a tasty meal. I really like Rainbow trout.
Swamp cabbage is heart of Sable Palm. You may be thinking about Skunk cabbage or such with a strong smell. Swamp cabbage may be an acquired taste as I did not like it as a child but I like it now but almost never get it. It is sort of like artichoke heart I guess in that you peel away the outer layers till you get to the tender bud then snap it off till it gets tough then you peel off another layer and repeat. If you get too far up it gets tough and bitter from natural quinine. I read once that was one reason the Seminole Indians did not get malaria as swamp cabbage was part of their natural diet.
It was usually boiled with a piece of pork like regular green cabbage or sometimes used raw in a salad. My favorite way to cook it is to dice up and fry a couple pieces of bacon and then fry the swamp cabbage in the bacon bits and bacon grease. smiley_chef_hat
Warning: I like the taste but be sure to eat in moderation till your system is attuned to it. It is probably the worlds best natural laxative. :o smiley_horserider
:D I'll keep that in mind.
https://www.thecoconet.tv/coco-cookbook/coco-cooking/how-to-make-cook-islands-raw-fish-aka-ika/ (https://www.thecoconet.tv/coco-cookbook/coco-cooking/how-to-make-cook-islands-raw-fish-aka-ika/)
You can make it at home, but it's so much better eating it in the Islands. ;D
And Lil is in the process of booking a trip for next year. 8)
Ian,
Thanks for the post and site info. I hope you guys enjoy that fish that way. I suspect the lemon or lime juice "cooks" the fish and I am sure it is really good.
I ate raw fish as sushi and shashimi as a guest at Henoko (local village next door to USMC Base Camp Schwab) during their Harvest Moon Festival in Okinawa in 1986 while stationed there and it was okay but I preferred the fish stuffed with sea urchin and rice and wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over coals. They had raw sea urchin to eat but I noticed nobody touched them till they got to bottom of the big 5 liter Saki bottles. I don't drink so I never got the "inclination" to try it.
Which reminds me of the old question "Who was the first guy to get drunk enough to eat a raw oyster?"
The Native Americans ate oysters and mussels in large quantities forming large middens with the discarded shells. Surely a great source of protein in their diets.
I have three memories that come to mind when thinking about my favorite fish meals. One was purchased at a restaurant, but the other two were sourced by yours truly, one of those prepared by a friend and the other by me.
1). Fried walleye at "The Lodge" in Dryden Ontario. Just unbelievably delicious. I went back and had it a second time and it was just as good as the first. The walleyes were caught on the lake through the ice in the month of February. This was in about 2002.
2). Blackened redfish on Cape Hatteras, NC in November 1994. The redfish was caught in the surf just north of Avon, NC on Hatteras Island. My friend had a propane fish cooker. He took the filleted redfish and liberally coated it with Paul Pudhommes blackening seasoning. (Here is a link to the recipe for the seasoning: Paul Prudhomme's Blackened Seasoning Blend Recipe - Food.com (https://www.food.com/recipe/paul-prudhommes-blackened-seasoning-blend-183866)). He then took a large cast iron skillet and put just enough peanut oil to get the bottom of the skillet wet. Put the skillet on the burner and got the skillet smoking hot. The throw in the fillet, leave it a minute cooking at 10,000 degrees, flip to the other side and repeat. Very hot skillet, very tasty spice seasoning, and very quick cooking. Blackened redfish.
3). Cajun rainbow trout in the North Georgia Mountains first done in the early 1990's. Clean the fresh caught trout by removing the entrails, then take the head and snap it back up to where the backbone breaks just behind the gills and then pull the snapped head toward the tail and the skin pulls off in one easy motion. Then turn the fish upside down with the open body cavity pointing up and take the tip of a very sharp knife and slice the bones along one side the backbone but not all the way through the back of the fish, then open it like a book, butterflying it. Now the fish will lay flat in the pan. Coat with a light coating of oil then apply a liberal amount of cajun seasoning or the seasoning of your choice. Let the fish marinate with the seasoning on it for a bit. Build a fire and make a nice coal bed. Take a cast iron skillet lightly coated with oil and get it hot. Put skillet on the coals or on a rack above but close to the coals. Lay the butterflied trout in the skillet and cook first on one side then the other in the hot skillet. The smoke from the hardwood coals from the fire also flavor the fish as well as the seasoning. When cooked right, both fillets pull perfectly off the bones in one large piece on each side leaving nothing but a fish skeleton like you see in the old cartoons. They are so good that you cannot cook them fast enough :). Cajun trout. Best had in conjunction with the cold beverage of your choice and live music played around the campfire in the Spring when the leaves are first turning green and the shadbush is just blooming.
Howard, I have had raw sea urchin. It is really quite good, it's like a pate with a fresh ocean taste.
Sawguy21,
Were you sober at the time? :D :D
Danny,
You're making me hungry for a late night snack. ;D
BTW - I thought a midden was a wet smelly mud wallow made by Rhinos. Sort a a rhino outhouse. That's what we saw on our trips in southern Africa.
There are various versions of the marinated fish recipe made all around the Pacific under slightly different names. The lemon juice does effectively "cook" the fish.
I can't think of a specific fish meal, but I will say that our Walleye up here make you turn your nose up at other fish😊 They are tasty! I love fresh stream trout as well👍
Not a meal,but I remember growing up and meeting my Father in the driveway to bring his green fish bag into the house to see how many brook trout he had caught. He always lined it with newspapers each time he went.
I caught and ate a lot of walleye when I lived up north. Can't find it down here and if you do it's the size of a gold fish and frozen.
First day in South Dakota I saw it on the menu and away I went. DELISH!
Neighbors in Tenn go trout fishing a couple Saturdays a month and always bring me some when I'm up there.
I remember driving an OTR truck up through PA and I think it was near Erie I stopped at a truck stop and they had Walleye on the menu. As I remember they were very good - but still not as good as my Cameroon tilapia. We have them here but I never fish for them. We had an old neighbor we met when we first moved in who used to have the state record but somebody caught a bigger one the year we moved in.
cfarm,
I never heard of lining a creel with newspaper. I guess it was to help keep it clean. Then again, we always kept our fish on a stringer, in a live well or ice box and I never knew anybody to use a creel. Different style of fishing no doubt.
We only used creels when fly fishing otherwise we used stringers
Creel,had to google this. Not that. This was a green,kinda a cloth/canvas bag. When it was empty it would be flat.
I have had many a Walleye meal up in Quebec and a few down here in PA, the northern Walleyes were better maybe because of the situation. On our annual fishing trips we would come in off the lake about 4-5 o'clock and dad would start putting potatoes on to boil while my brother and I were cleaning fish then my brother would get the table ready while I was frying the fillets. I miss the trips with dad but my brother and I were up on Lake Ogascannon last month and the fish are still great.
I plan on having a big pile of whitefish for supper tomorrow night!
Pictures are expected, leftovers are not.
I'm providing and cooking at my son's annual church fish fry this Saturday so any of you passing through PM for directions and so I know to bring more fish. ;) Its right off I-64 at the Green Sulphur Springs Exit and easy to get to for travelers. :D
I was talking to my son tonight about this thread and he said he and his roommate in college used to go catch a bunch of crappie then throw them back and stop at the local grocery and buy a bunch of Walleye. They said it was too cheap and too good to bother cleaning the crappie.
Yes Howard, I was stone colde sober. :D Walleye caught in cold water is very tasty, had lots of it in Alberta. We are in the Pacific drainage here in southern BC so don't see it.
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Whoa!
Wow! Looks a lot better than what I had for lunch.
Jeff, my dad makes smoked whitefish that people will just about fight over!😁
Some pictures from older threads.
Before
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After
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Quote from: barbender on September 21, 2019, 01:14:26 AM
Jeff, my dad makes smoked whitefish that people will just about fight over!😁
Oooh, I want some!
Danny, if I ever get a wild hair and come down to the Southern get together, I'll be sure to bring some. It's gotten to the point that when I show up some places, people are pretty disappointed if I don't have smoked whitefish. I wish they just liked me for me😂😂
In December 2008 my wife and I took a private boat trip down a tributary of the Amazon in Ecuador and most nights we'd camp in an Indian village or even with the last Ecuadorian army outpost (about 11-12 soldiers living in 2 rough sawed board barracks with a kitchen and a bed of sand for the fire under their cookpot). One night we camped wild after an hour or so pushing through what looked like sawgrass to a remote lake. That night the guide and staff got out with flashlights, a bamboo spear and machetes and caught/killed 30-40 fish (Mostly piranha and maybe a peacock bass or two) and they cleaned the fish and built a small table/stand of green sticks across 4 forked sticks and while we ate breakfast and broke camp they smoked the fish. They spread them out on the table and put a couple of palm fronds on to keep the bugs off and hold the smoke in. I was amazed the fish smoked done as quickly as they did. They were pretty bony, like our bream, but they were very tasty. The guide put them in a cardboard box we had left over from something and we ate on them all morning. I've tried smoking crappie and bluegills and such and some was okay but none was ever as good as those.
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A Cock of the Walk (http://www.cockofthewalkrestaurant.com/) catfish plate ain't bad.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/IMG_3213.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1507235698)
And neither is a whole broiled flounder from Middendorf's. (http://middendorfsrestaurant.com/Menu/Appetizers)
Lynn,
All look real good except I have a question about that first plate. Is that a bowl of turnip greens or collards that got mixed in with the fish? :D I never heard of eating greens with fish. Tell me it ain't so even in Mississippi. ;D
:D :D I really enjoy lightly battered fish and chips but no way I can eat that much in one sitting.
Just got back from a fish fry at my son's church (Lick Creek Baptist Church - thank you for asking) where I took my cooker and 20 lbs of catfish fingers/fillets to cook. Since Danny was not here to help I bought a couple boxes of hushpuppy mix and cooked them. Thankfully there were a couple of ladies there cooking much better ones than mine. We had a great meal, plenty of fish with not an excessive amount left over and still got home in time to watch AU beat up on A&M.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/38064/IMG_1489.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1569106145)
3 legged fish/turkey cooker my brother gave me from his stay in Morgan City LA right after he got out of college. Pot from a flea market in Albany GA circa 1982 made from half a Freon bottle (It has cooked a lot of fish in its day). Long handled Wire ladle/strainer from Saudi Arabia - they use them there with big wok shaped pots to cook Falafels (When I was living and working in Jeddah Saudi Arabia I'd buy Falafel mix off a local vendor and use it for hush puppies at my fish fries from Red Sea fish). Shoes from 7 y/o gd Molly. Pretty fish but about a 7 compared to Jeff's whitefish which made a 10 of the fried fish beauty contest scale IMHO.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/38064/IMG_1490.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1569106624)
Near done cooking fish. BTW - if you need to cook a large amount of fish ahead of time an ice chest makes an excellent thermal storage container and keeps your food hot and fresh. This is a $3 flea market find. I never pay more than $5 for such coolers at flea markets and keep several on hand to give fish away to friends and family and not worry about getting my cooler back.
(Okay - The AU/A&M game is now over so I can post this now without having to eat my words :D.)
Quote from: WV Sawmiller on September 21, 2019, 11:11:05 AMIs that a bowl of turnip greens or collards that got mixed in with the fish? :D I never heard of eating greens with fish. Tell me it ain't so even in Mississippi.
Click on the Cock of the Walk link. You will see that a pot of turnip greens comes with every order of catfish. Just the way it is. ;D
Barbender, now you have and went and done it. Next Spring a Black OPs unit will surreptitiously land under the cover of darkness at your place and kidnap you. Be sure to keep some smoked whitefish in your possibles bag.
MM,
The thin fried catfish at Middendorfs is as good as it gets.
Years ago, when a good friend of mine were probably still in our late teens, we went out into the Gulf about 20 miles one summer day fishing for grouper and mangrove snapper. The fishing was relatively slow. We caught a couple of decent snapper and a grouper or two. Some small dolphin showed up under the boat and we were only able to catch a couple.
After getting back to the house and cleaning the fish we discovered that we did not have any cornmeal (our preferred batter for fish) but we did have some saltines and some instant mashed potato mix. We dredged the grouper and snapper fillets through some milk and double battered them in the potato/saltine mix along with Everglades seasoning and probably some others and fried them in peanut oil. While we were eating the snapper I recall both of us commenting that this was the best fish we had ever eaten. Then, we ate some grouper and had the same comment. As we were eating the fried fish, we still had a couple of dolphin on a charcoal grill a few feet away. The two of us ate all of the snapper, grouper, and dolphin and we still occasionally talk about that meal - it must have been good for both of us to have such fond memories of it after more than 30 years.
Breakfast!
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Lunch and Dinner :D
No picture but I had a very good breakfast here in Charlotte NC this morning at the Skyland Restaurant on South Blvd about a block from the Woodlawn intersection. They do a great job of everything but for breakfast I always get the fish and grits. Two big old Flied Frounder (Fried Flounder - I just never can pronounce it) fillets and a big old bowl of grits and butter and tarter sauce. Its not on the breakfast menu but I saw another patron eating it one time and asked andhave gotten it ever since.
Anyone ever been up the Gunflint Trail in Northern Minnesota?
This summer I got to have a fried Walleyed sandwich, which seems so simple, but was the best fish meal I have ever had.
Had it at Trail Center, and they only have it on the menu when it they get it fresh from their local suppliers.
Number 2 best was in Husavik, Iceland.
Had a Halibut steak at a place right next to the docks. We could see them bring fresh fish into the restaurant while we were there! It was so good, and it only had some salt & pepper on it.
Shore lunches of walleye on various NY and canadian lakes fried in Bacon grease from first cooking a pound of bacon.
Oh my arteries!
I can eat most fish but don't really enjoy it but I love shrimp.
When I moved to Maine I quickly found out that the sweetest shrimp to be had were from Maine. Sorry guys Gulf shrimp are good but the Maine ones are the best!!
A local restaurant does a great battered shrimp plate that I love. The other way is in butter and garlic by themselves.
Now that some of you are planning to come to Maine to get some... the bad news. The fishery for them has been closed for the last 5 years and they don't know when it'll re-open. I really miss them.
You may have to start eating poached shrimp.
@caveman (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=12883)
I'm afraid not. My wife is very much a by the book type. I just won't ask which gulf the come form.(Gulf of Maine- Gulf coast what's the difference) ;D
Seriously the stocks are down, I actually heard one expert(idiot) say it was Global Climate Change.
We go walleye fishing as often as we can in the Northern section of the Columbia river where the Pend Oreille and Columbia converge, we liken the walleye as the fresh water version of cod or rock bass we would fish for all the time off the coast, great eating fish, ah, come to think of it, a fish and chip dinner sounds mighty fine right about now. problem is it always disappears quicker then anyone can think of taking a pic or two of the mean spread made.
:D I had fish and chips, one of my favorite meals, for lunch. It didn't last long.
To me oily fish like trout or salmon does not appeal to me ,too "fishy " but cats like them .My best is lake Erie Perch or walleye or yellowtail from the Florida keys .Fried BTW ,yum ,yum eat-em -up .Go good with beer . 8)
My favorite all time is bluegills and perch. Any panfish. Then Walleyes smallmouth bass and whitefish. We are lucky in Michigan. Lots of fish choices.
Talking about bluegill, back when wife and I lived in the U.P....which was many moons ago, we had only 12-ft. non-motorized fishing boat. We tried Bond Flowage and on one stormy day nearly lost boat and life getting smacked around on tree trunks that stuck out of that body of water. We quickly moved onto just smaller lakes. At one-Johnson Pond-which nobody, and I do mean nobody else ever fished, I would do my usual casting of surface hardbaits for largemouth bass in the stumps and downed timber, just because they're fun to catch. But my wife would hang a worm and bobber over the "wrong" side of the boat, i.e. the deep, non-shoreline side and quickly began producing unbelievably large bluegills, the biggest by far I've ever seen, even to this day.
So here was what amounted to a beaver pond-big dam at one end-but with a deep hole in the middle, ringed by tamaracks and pitcher plants....and these really nice fish. I'd say those were our best eating fish ever.
As a side-note, we were there one evening a bit before sundown when a cannon went off. I just could not understand what the heck we were hearing, but eventually, the beaver's head appeared on the surface of the lake. I never knew they sounded so deep, or if, for that matter, they always sound like that. Unbelievably deep boom, but it was just the beaver warning us off! Maybe something to do with the topography, it didn't sound like a "slap", but as I say, like heavy artillery fire.
Quote from: Al_Smith on September 29, 2019, 10:44:41 AM
To me oily fish like trout or salmon does not appeal to me ,too "fishy " but cats like them .My best is lake Erie Perch or walleye or yellowtail from the Florida keys .Fried BTW ,yum ,yum eat-em -up .Go good with beer . 8)
I think yellow perch and walleye are related. Both are DELISH!
Living on Florida's gulf coast I have so many fresh fish to choose from but still dream of fresh walleye and haddock
Camped out on the shores of Sam Raburn many years ago. Camping friends were cajun, and she produced coubion, spelling not right, but Court Bullion, made with sacolet, white perch/crappie. over a outdoor wood fire. Best fish dish I ever ate.
Deep South Dish: Cajun Coubion - Courtbouillon (https://www.deepsouthdish.com/2010/03/cajun-courtbouillon.html)
My best fish meals are each one that I cook while on canoe trips to Quetico. It's been a long time since my last and I need to go again. Catch some pike or walleye during the day and then fry it up in some lard over a fire on an island in the middle of a lake in the north woods. It doesn't get any better than that for me. It just tastes that much better. Filleting the fish on a canoe paddle adds to the experience. I can't wait to go back.
Quote from: firefighter ontheside on September 30, 2019, 04:59:40 PM
My best fish meals are each one that I cook while on canoe trips to Quetico. It's been a long time since my last and I need to go again. Catch some pike or walleye during the day and then fry it up in some lard over a fire on an island in the middle of a lake in the north woods. It doesn't get any better than that for me. It just tastes that much better. Filleting the fish on a canoe paddle adds to the experience. I can't wait to go back.
Firefighter, that really brought back some good old memories. My first Canadian fishing trip (30+ years ago) was a canoe trip through Quetico. Lots of pike and smallies, some walleye too, but my favorite part was a whole afternoon my best friend and I spent catching lake trout 90+ ft down out of a canoe. What a riot that was! On that trip we even had a bear walk right through our camp on the 3rd night. DanG thing even walked right beside me sleeping in the tent that night and I never heard it. Lol....After that we camped only on small island out far away from mainland for the rest of the trip!
Quote from: Raider Bill on September 30, 2019, 01:45:30 PM
Quote from: Al_Smith on September 29, 2019, 10:44:41 AM
To me oily fish like trout or salmon does not appeal to me ,too "fishy " but cats like them .My best is lake Erie Perch or walleye or yellowtail from the Florida keys .Fried BTW ,yum ,yum eat-em -up .Go good with beer . 8)
I think yellow perch and walleye are related. Both are DELISH!
To my understanding a walleye is related to a perch .As a kid I thought they were of the pike family like northern pike .Northerns' are a hoot to catch but a tad bit on the boney side
A story .The winter of 1967 the navy sent me to Key West Florida for training .Of course the Keys have an abundance of fish .Great past time catching .
them .
Well being a 19 year old right off the farm I had not then nor ever since filleted a fish .By chance ,blind luck I snagged a 42 " grouper that nearly dragged me out of the boat .I just scaled it like a bluegill and cut it in pieces that would fit in a 12" cast iron skillet because I didn't know any better .It was a hit .fed 14 people and we could not eat it all .Bush beer ,newly on the market sold for 69 cents a 6 pack .It went good with fresh fish and hush puppies .52 years ago like it was yesterday .
@DPatton (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=33417) I only caught one lake trout on all my quetico trips. That was in one of the man chain lakes. Caught on a crank bait in September. I always preferred the island campsites, but it's really not a deterrent to keep a bear from investigating a smelly fish meal and of course the mosquitoes are everywhere.
@WDH (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=4370) been fishing on Eagle Lake have ya? It's been a few years but I've been there probably 20 times. Love that lake. Never been in the winter though. That would be neat.
@Al_Smith (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=2054) ,
Reminds me of a 50 lb Wrasse, sort of like a big grouper, I shot in a narrow cave while scuba diving in the Red Sea near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia while doing a night dive with my roommate. We had just started our dive and were down about 30' when I spotted the fish in the cave just big enough for him and me to enter. I had a compressed air spear pistol with about a 12" pot metal spear and eased up within a couple feet of the fish I had blinded with my light like gigging a bullfrog and I shot him in the right eye. He went crazy and hit the side of the cave and broke the spear off in his eye then calmed down and was laying there dying. We tried various ways to push him out with no luck so I crawled in and finally got a stringer through his mouth and gills. A couple times he rushed at me as I blocked the cave and he knocked my mask off and my regulator out of my mouth. Fred would pull me back out by my fins and I'd get my gear back on and go back. I passed the stringer to Fred who wrapped it around his hand. I tried to rip his gills out to finish killing him but they were too big and tough so pulled my dive knife out and stabbed him to the hilt in his head. He quivered and I thought he was finally dead so I backed out pulling him with me. Once out he made another mad rush headed for Sudan with Fred tied to him but after 10-20 feet he fizzled out and stopped. I swam over and got him by my knife hilt as a handle and Fred had the stringer on the other side. We surfaced and waded across 2' deep water to the entry point about 6' above the water level. I climbed the rocks and Fred handed me the stringer and I tried to lift him and it broke and he fell back in the water and started flopping and Fred jumped him and bear hugged him till he stopped then together we got him up and put him in the back of my Toyota Corolla. His tail stuck out of the trunk. His scales were 2-3 inches across and his rib bones were as big as kitchen matches. I don't remember how we cut him up but I guess we filleted him. We had a fish fry a couple days later and fed the whole compound and all our co-workers off him. He was good but I don't remember him being as good as some others I ate other places.
I do remember the next day I came home and Fred had cooked a meal off him in my Fry Daddy cooker I'd brought from the States. He said it was good but he did not know what this black stuff peeling off the side of my cooker was. I finally realized he had neglected to take the plastic top (sort of like a plastic coffee can lid) off and had melted it. I doubt that was particularly healthy but to this day I don't know if any ill effects he has suffered from it.
Attached below are a couple of scans of the fish. (Sorry - just scanned the photos and that cropping and such is not one of the skill sets I have mastered yet :()
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/38064/IMG_20191003_0003.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1570160460)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/38064/IMG_20191003_0004.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1570160525)
The one above we put on out bulletin board and a smart Alec added the note in reference to Fred's tendencies to be a real lady's man.
This was nearly 30 years ago and I have increased in girth and have a lot more gray than back then.
FFOTS,
Never been to Eagle Lake.
Danny, I was just assuming since you said Dryden. Of course there's lots of lakes around there.
This talk of "caves" takes me back to the days of my youth .In Key West diving for spiny lobster I could free dive ,with no weights to about 12 feet and hold my breath for about minute .Spied one and off I went to get him and got met by a moray eel that looked as large as a shark to me .That one got a free pass needless to say . :o
Al,
I am not a fan of cave diving or actually spelunking in general. We had access to dive at a private pier in Jeddah. The owner of all the pizza huts in the kingdom let us dive at his pier behind a Pizza Hut on the Red Sea. A big chunk of concrete had broken off and on a night dive I shot a big snapper under it. He got hung and I crawled under and tried to get him out. In the process I got my gauges hung then got a piece of old fishing line hung on my quick release on my weight belt and it dropped off and I floated to the bottom of the concrete pulling my regulator out of my mouth. I was almost out of air anyway as I was at the end of my dive. My partner checked on me and I gave him the share air signal so he started methodically uncoiling his octopus to pass to me. He was taking his own sweet time while I was turning blue and thinking "This is a significant inconvenience". He finally got air to me, I shed my BCD then pulled my gauges free and pulled my now empty air tank and BCD out which promptly headed to the surface pulling me along and jerking my shared octopus out of my mouth. I was down about 40' or so and had to do the uncontrolled buoyant assent technique PADI teaches for such involving blowing air out all the way to the surface as the air in my lungs expanded over double in size to the top due to the lesser pressure. The technique worked and I survived. I came back the next day with a spare weight belt and went down and got my other belt and speargun. The fish was now long gone probably eaten by the other fish in the area.
Did I mention I am not a big fan of cave diving! I don't ever want anything over my head again when I am diving. If things go south i want to be able to go straight up.
Key West Fla at that time 1967 is where they sent trainees from all branches of the armed forces for diver training .They'd drop them about a mile off shore and have them swim back at pre dawn .They would be arriving just as I got out of bed .I never had any desire to be a navy diver needless to say .
Water is one thing but that's about my limit ,snorkeling perhaps but not SCUBA or hard hard .
At the time I was a 19 year old straight out of the Ohio cornfields and didn't have scales or gills .If I was going to be under the water for any length of time it was going to in a submarine . :)
Having said that ocean fishing was a new experience for me .You never quite knew what you might catch .The first time I caught a grunt and the danged time talked back at me I thought I must have drank too much beer in the hot sun or something .It was a learning curve .
Al,
I learned to scuba dive while in USMC stationed on Okinawa through the MWR there. We had great diving there but most of my diving was later in the Red Sea when I was working in Jeddah Saudia Arabia. Nearly half my dives there were night dives largely because of my work schedule and such. Air was about 50 cents a tank at the local dive shop after I bought my own tanks and used a refill card. I did a lot of spear fishing and mostly it was like gigging frogs. You'd shine a light in their eye and blind them and I'd shoot them in the eye from about 6" away then put them on a big ring like a giant safety pin. Mostly I shot unicorn fish which I skinned and filleted and the taste reminded me a lot of catfish. I later got to shooting bright colored parrot fish that would sleep in small pockets in the coral and spit out a spider web across the opening. If you bumped the spider web they would get alarmed and rush out blindly into the night. I have had them knock my mask off in the process. I would gut and freeze them and give them to our Filipino and African workers who loved them. They sold in the local market for 15 riyals/kg or about $4/lb as I remember so the workers could never afford to buy them. One night I had just shot and put a fish on my ring and looked up and was face to face with a 4' barracuda. Small barracuda were good eating but I immediately shot him in the head more in self defense and he went berserk. All I could see was teeth. I held the short spear trying to keep him pointed away from me as we did circles underwater. The spear point had not gone in his head deep enough for the wings/barbs to open and he finally pulled free and left into the night leaving one very nervous diver behind. Some fish are too big to shoot. Actually the Wrasse, if not in the cave, would have been hard to control. On daylight dives I used a long band gun and about a 3' spear and mostly hunted grouper. They would look blue or gray at 50' deep then when we'd surface find they were red because of what the water did to the light. Unicorn fish were too wild to ever get a shot at during daylight but at night you could catch them by hand when light blinded. At night when using a light we'd see the true colors which were magnificent. Also at night we'd see the nocturnal critters never seen in daytime. I found the night dives very relaxing although I took friends and all I saw was constant flashing lights as they constantly looked for that critter from Jaws. Scuba was actually easier than snorkeling as you were breathing air from a tank and you had a weight belt to keep you down and a BCD to keep you up. You'd just adjust the air in the vest to keep you neutral. After diving a while I got where I'd just adjust my breathing to change depths using my lungs like a balloon. Breathe in deeper and you start to rise, exhale deeper and you started to sink. I miss that part plus watching the critters under there.
The first barracuda I ever saw while snorkeling looked like it was 8 feet long and all teeth .In reality it was most likely 4 feet and just curious .--Remember straight off the farm-- :D
Howard,
Good thing that you are not the subject of a fish's best meal :)
@WDH (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=4370) - Danny,
For a minute or so I thought I was about to me. A barracuda that size has a very impressive set of teeth.
On another night dive I looked up and had about a 12' long eagle ray, probably 45" wide eyeball to eyeball with me. I took my flashlight and pushed his nose pushing him away from me. Fortunately he did not pull a Steve Irwin on me and just swam away. On that same dive as we started to exit I spotted a 50-60 lb turtle and grabbed it and we had a pretty wild ride. We were only in 7-8 ft of water and my dive partner came over and hit the inflator button on my vest taking me to the surface and removed my fins and she towed me in till I could walk. We took the turtle to the beach and showed him to a bunch of women and kids there then put him back and watched him swim away. They thought we were going to eat it and seemed confused.
On a Christmas Eve night dive with a young friend of a co-worker my light died so I followed him around till he turned and shined the light in my face and I saw what I thought was a baby ray shark a foot or so long hovering 3-4 ft above the sand between us. I'd put a hand in front and back keeping him in place till I touched his nose with the finger with a hole in my glove. That was when I discovered they have this amazing fish in the Red Sea called an Electric Ray. Boy did he get my attention. Worse than peeing on an electric fence. There are books and videos and Nature TV shows that teach you these things that are a lot less painful but not nearly as memorable.
By bud Randy who is no longer with us had the best fish fry batter I ever had .He used beer in it .I'll have to ask his window if she knows what was in it .She's in the other room as I type ;)
A little beer is good. Cornmeal is the secret to a good batter if you ask me.
Quote from: Al_Smith on October 06, 2019, 02:17:14 PM
By bud Randy who is no longer with us had the best fish fry batter I ever had .He used beer in it .I'll have to ask his window if she knows what was in it .She's in the other room as I type ;)
and spicy mustard. um um good
No pictures because I was too busy cooking but we had a retired teacher's luncheon/fish fry here today with a dozen of my wife's former co-workers. My wife cooked up/fixed a big pot of yellow grits, cole slaw, some apple Betty (Apple crumble to some), and baked beans and I fried 10-12 lbs of catfish fillets and a pack of striper fillets a friend from NC had left us. The guests brought an assortment of desserts and side dishes and we all had a great time. One member could not attend because he recently had 2 back surgeries but he had called and pleaded for us to send him a plate which we did. Most everybody took a clamshell full of leftovers home with him. One of the guests only comes to our fishfry every year and he typically eats several big helpings of grits which are not common in this part of the country.
One funny note was about 8:30 a.m. an old neighbor showed up to get a load of slabwood he uses for firewood. I was already out at the barn when he showed up. He rang the bell and asked my wife "What time is the fish fry?" He had been here earlier and I had told him we were having a fish fry today. He just wanted to make sure he was not intruding but my wife thought I had invited him and he was the first to arrive and she was pretty well floorboarded. This is the guy who stopped by last summer while I was cleaning fish and offered him a mess and told him "I will run up to the house and get an old ice cream bucket or something to put you some in" and he said "That's okay, I just happen to have a ziplock bag in my back pocket" then he pulled out a gallon ziplock bag. He definitely came prepared.
This guy brings a small chainsaw and saws the slabwood up into 6-10 inch long pieces to burn in a small wood and coal stove so when he leaves he has a pretty full truckload. I even made 2 more saw horses I leave out there at the slab pile to help him cut them. He cleaned out the rest of my pile today which saves me having to move it.
I don't know if this was the best fish meal but it ranked right up there. I have not had an opportunity to fish much lately due to other obligations but my cousin brought a bag of bass to us when he came over for Thanks Giving day.
I fried the fish last night, my mother made grits and fried apples and my wife cooked some lima's. My dad, pictured, has been having a hard time since his stroke last February but he thoroughly enjoyed the fish and having the family over for Sunday supper.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22883/IMG_3831.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1575312211)
The bass looks good but right now I'd rather have a big old bowl of those green limas with a side of cole slaw and a big old corner piece of cornbread (especially if they were seasoned with a good portion of pork stew/pork loin or pork chop). digin_2
I will take the fish and grits.
Red snapper and king mackerel steamed on the grill, then open and smoke a bit. Hm hm hm.
Quote from: WDH on December 02, 2019, 08:36:45 PM
I will take the fish and grits.
Danny,
That is what I had for breakfast yesterday. Fried flounder fillets and a big old bowl of grits with biscuits on the side. Skyland Cafe in Charlotte NC. Down there they are cultured enough to already add the salt and butter to the grits before they bring it to you. No sugar or maple syrup issues there!
Howard, when I was first reading your post I was thinking to myself that that (Tom) guy is really a talented fisherman if he can catch flounder in WV - may have borrowed one of Danny's surf casting rigs for the long cast. The fish and grits last night were right on time. Cold fish for breakfast is always a good choice.
The snapper and kingfish should have been going off in the gulf last week but I have not had an opportunity to go in a while.
Several of my buddies have been catching good messes of speckled perch lately.
Grits need to be seasoned as they cook.
So you mean you should start cooking them in the fall to eat them this winter? Kinda like putting ay?
No soup grits for you.
Honest truth, the last time we went out for fish, I ordered Liver. I'm due for some fish.
Man! It would take some pretty awful fish for me to order liver instead. :D Then again I hate liver. My wife likes some calf liver or chicken livers sometimes and she might have made such a trade off if you caught her in the right mood.
X2 :D