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My Best Fish Meals

Started by WV Sawmiller, September 18, 2019, 09:09:49 AM

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firefighter ontheside

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.
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DPatton

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!
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Al_Smith

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 

Al_Smith

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 .

firefighter ontheside

@DPatton  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.
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firefighter ontheside

@WDH 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.
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WV Sawmiller

@Al_Smith ,

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 :()


 


 
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.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

WDH

FFOTS, 

Never been to Eagle Lake. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

firefighter ontheside

Danny, I was just assuming since you said Dryden.  Of course there's lots of lakes around there.
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Al_Smith

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

WV Sawmiller

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.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

Al_Smith

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 .

WV Sawmiller

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.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

Al_Smith

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

WDH

Howard,

Good thing that you are not the subject of a fish's best meal :)  

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WV Sawmiller

@WDH -  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.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

Al_Smith

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  ;)

wisconsitom

A little beer is good.  Cornmeal is the secret to a good batter if you ask me.
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Texas Ranger

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
The Ranger, home of Texas Forestry

WV Sawmiller

   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.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

caveman

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.



 
Caveman

WV Sawmiller

   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
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

WDH

I will take the fish and grits.
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Texas Ranger

Red snapper and king mackerel steamed on the grill, then open and smoke a bit.  Hm hm hm.
The Ranger, home of Texas Forestry

WV Sawmiller

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 Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

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