This time of year Lake Michigan Perch are fantastic !

Fry 'em up.



Tacos de Perch

Those are beautiful, JSM! How far off shore were you when you caught them, if I may ask?

JSM wrote:Tacos de Perch

Tacos de I'll be over in half an hour!!

Those look delicious!

Mhays wrote:Those are beautiful, JSM! How far off shore were you when you caught them, if I may ask?

If I told 'ya I'd have to kill 'ya........lets just say not very

That's an awful bigmouthed perch yon Young Angler is hoisting, top o' the line!

Bring them perchies up here to Québec, we've got a way with them!

(Of course, doesn't EVERYone who can catch 'em, have a way with 'em! )

Nothing more fun for a young folk than going fishing: memories are made of this.

Geo

Whose fish is bigger?


We camped this year along the Hennepin Canal, just upriver from Starved Rock. The fish were biting, but, as always, these twin 14" bass were caught just before we were about to leave for home - amazing what reference will do for fish photography (I'm nearly a food shorter than the 'spouse.) He caught his with by artfully manipulating a chugger across the surface; I fortuitously snagged mine near the top fin with a crankbait. Even Sparky, who was "fishing" with an unhooked practice plug, almost caught a fish...something sizeable swallowed his little blue batman fish whole and then spat it out.

I fileted them,

battered the fillets (which I'll butcher a little less next time, I hope,) fried them up and made lovely fish tacos for dinner.

Next time, less batter and tortillas hecho a mano.



I actually found them to be better-tasting even than bluegills, which lately have had a kind of muddy flavor, especially near the skin(though similar, after all, they're all sunfish) nice, firm white flesh that took to frying really nicely - like Tilapia, if tilapia were any good. Again, I don't know about terroir and fish, but although the canal reeked, the fish didn't...and maybe the running water had something to do with the cleaner flavor. Beats slicing up a half-dozen little guys, too.

MHays wrote:He caught his with by artfully manipulating a chugger across the surface; I fortuitously snagged mine near the top fin with a crankbait. Even Sparky, who was "fishing" with an unhooked practice plug, almost caught a fish...something sizeable swallowed his little blue batman fish whole and then spat it out.

You are starting to talk in fisherman-speak. It sounds very expert and yet leaves me in the dark. No need to explain further, if I ever need to know about chuggers I know where to go.

You've only been doing this for two years?

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:You are starting to talk in fisherman-speak. It sounds very expert and yet leaves me in the dark. No need to explain further, if I ever need to know about chuggers I know where to go.

I know, ain't we cool? We even have the hats.

Unfortunately, we come by what we know exclusively through books, fishing shows on TV, and impluse shopping - not near as good as having Grandpa or somebody walk you through it when you were a kid - but we were both so terribly excited to finally catch something without having to purchase or hunt down and kill something else first (which seems terribly inefficient to me, especially the shopping for worms part) There's also the satisfaction of following the "if you want to catch a fish, think like a fish" dictum when using artificial bait (or, conversely, the frustration of being out-thunk by a creature whose gift to evolution is that it eats whatever falls or is swept into its mouth.)

Be happy to share our books with anybody who's interested, they're not like cookbooks - we've pretty much mined the information; even funnier is that for both these years we've have two full tackle boxes of fishing crap and these are the first two eating-size fish on our plates yet. Lures multiply more rapidly than kitchen widgets.

As a new and self-taught fisherman (thanks to the internet and Youtube), I've really enjoyed my new "hobby." However, I've been fishing since June, and all I've really been getting are gobies... and more gobies...



Well, the cat likes 'em, so since I was post-call today I thought I'd do a little mid-week fishing for an hour or so... I also thought I'd try out a lure that I'd bought (had been fishing with plain hooks).

Imagine my surprise when the first fish I got off the lure was.... a 2-inch goby... (roughly the same size as the lure)... sigh...

Well... a few minutes later...


















It's freshwater drum season...


I thought I was dreaming...

Prepping the fish was a real PITA... I might consider catch & release if I EVER get one of those again... We'll see how he tastes though.

Hmmmmm. What do gobies taste like? Could you treat them like smelt? Wiki says that they eat zebra mussels, which is a Very Good Thing. If they were themselves tasty, that would be a nice food chain!

Geo

Jay,

Did you use plain hooks without bait, really? If you did and caught one of those, then this may give my Mom some cheer.

Just before I entered kindergarten, we briefly lived in a lake house. My Mom decided to entertain my 3-year-old sister and I by taking us fishing in a row boat. We very earnestly sat there with our hook in the water waiting for the action to begin. When nothing happened, a neighbor yelled out, "What kind of bait are you using?" My Mom said, "Bait?" Something needed to be on the hook, hmmm, we grabbed what was first available: blueberries. We baited our hook with blueberries, which produced the same results as the unbaited hook: nothing. Of course, if we had caught anything, we would have been in trouble, too. Mom knew nothing about cleaning fish fresh off the hook.

Regards,

Wow, that is quite a beauty, J - according to the Fish of the Great Lakes site: "The white, flaky flesh of the drum is tasty and has a low oil content... When cooking, be sure that the fish doesn't dry out and become hard. The low oil content means that fillets dry out much more quickly than other, more oily, fish. Recommended cooking methods include pan frying (in batter) or deep fat frying. Smoking also works well, as long as you're careful not to heat them for too long." Might be a good candidate to take to Hagen's for smoking. Looking at the nutritional information linked there, FWIW, it's apparently still a bit fattier than bass or pike, but a lot less fatty than trout or wild salmon. I look forward to seeing your prep and disposal of this beast.

Geo, Jay talks about prepping the goby for table here

Tnx Mhays, I'd forgotten (already ) the name "goby"...I'm getting old. J you might want to take a look at that goby thread: it would seem that they make a nice crunchy bite. And, if they're eating zebra mussels, we should be eating them, just to keep the circle unbroken!

Geo

Cathy2 wrote:Did you use plain hooks without bait, really? If you did and caught one of those, then this may give my Mom some cheer.

Great story, Cathy. No, I meant plain hooks with bait is what I've been catching the gobies with.

This little thing is what I used to catch the 7lb drum. It's supposed to be a shad imitation.


I also managed to stab myself in the thumb and index finger quite horribly with it as well... those barbed treble hooks are deadly.

Jay K wrote: I also managed to stab myself in the thumb and index finger quite horribly with it as well... those barbed treble hooks are deadly.

Ouch! Me, too - more than once!

Also love the story, Cathy.

Not even close to 'eating my catch' but tonight happened to be "scrounge supper" night, and my scrounging tonight yielded a slab of black drum hiding, not in Lake Geneva, but underneath a bag of frozen drunk dumplings*. Further scrounging in the freezer led to three small Hatch chilis (why I would leave behind these three small things is beyond me). Also pulled out a half-onion, some beat-down tomaters, and a ratty ol' potato with three-inch long sprouts.

Softened the onions 'til soft, threw in the taters, played around with it for a bit, threw in the peppers, played around for a bit, threw in the tomatoes and a couple of frozen cubes of fish stock and stewed the sucker until the potatoes were soft and the stuff reduced down and came together. 'Blackened' the fish in some spices, poured the stew around, consumed.



In no way is this a recommendation for your fresh catch, but it was some good grub (if a little too tomatoey), and the fish came through to the extent this kind should. Poured off the rest of some Pappy Van Winkle and had a patxaran for dessert (Baines - the last from my trip to Spain).

Scrounging can be good sometimes.

*Only to be consumed when.

Tatter- That is one fabulous looking dish and a great rec re: preparing the drum... I need to invite you to scrounge in my fridge.

Incidentally, I'd had black drum once before only in TX - Pappadeaux's.

Incidentally #2, I had to google black drum to see what they looked like. This is what popped up:


It took me almost an hour to realize there was a fish in the picture.

Figured since I am soon to be defrosting some of my catch from our vacation last month, this now falls under "Eating Your Catch".

Spent a week in Corolla, NC (Outer Banks) in June like we do every 2 years, and like always charter a boat. It is usually just the guy's who go fishing, but this year my wife joined us as well. To say we had a good day, is an understatement. Ended up with 246lbs of Dolphin and 264lbs of Yellowfin Tuna, and headed back home about 4 hours early.

Ate much of it while in NC, gave a TON of it away to anyone we saw, and happily have about 25lbs of it in my freezer



Jamie

Please be sure to show us how you're cooking up those beasts! Can you use the tuna for maguro sushi?

This thread brings back pleasant childhood memories. My dad took all of us, boys and girls, fishing, and taught us hook baiting, sitting quietly, catching, scaling, and flieting. When I was in junior high school a friend and I would strap our little tackle boxes and poles onto our bikes with bungee cords and ride to a hidden natural gem, Foley's Pond (http://tiny.cc/mfk1p), to spend free afternoons fishing. I'd forgotten about Foley's Pond until recently when I saw it mentioned in the outdoors column of the Pioneer Press.

All of my brothers and sisters who have kids have taught their kids how to fish. I think it's a great thing for both boys and girls. I never caught very much, but it got us outside, on our bikes, going to the local pond, to sit by the water and be quiet and look around. Of course, this was all before video games.

Hi,

This fish was caught on a pink Barbie fishing rod:

ELKIN, N.C. - David Hayes' granddaughter just asked him to hold her Barbie rod and reel while she went to the bathroom. He did. And seconds later he landed the state record channel catfish at 21 pounds, 1 ounce.

...

Hayes and his granddaughter have been fishing in the pond behind his house since she was big enough to hold a pole.

Hayes said his granddaughter worried he would break her rod. He landed the 21-pound fish on a 6-pound test line. It was 32 inches long, 2 inches longer than the rod.

I wonder if there is a GI Joe fishing rod?

Regards,

Batman fishing rod in action:


Also available in a longer length, or Spider-Man and Scooby-Doo. We also have the Rocket Fishing Rod, which has yet to get a nibble.

Cathy2, I just finished reading that post on Chicagolandfishing and thought it funny to see it here on LTH. Certainly says something about location, location, location as well as bait/lure type more than expensive equipment.

Mhays, what's that nice fat little fish there, at the end of the batline? A bass maybe??

Geo

That was the day Sparky caught 2 bass and some unidentified fish that was probably a rock bass in the space of ten minutes...and the 'spouse and I caught not a darn thing.

Sounds like it worked out 'zackly right, eh Mhays?!

Geo

PS. Geo's making up a gallon or two of his very extra-special Grandma Geo's spaghetti sauce today. Yum! About mid-Jan this will take us back to today...

Interestingly enough, all the fish I've caught out of the Lake, I've prepared very simply, so that I can taste the fish - my first time eating any of the Lake dwellers.



That 7-lb drum turned into two fair-sized fillets; I avoided the belly and skin as advised re: larger fish from the Lake.





I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm fairly addicted to spicy mayo these days (above condiment).

I really miss these guys...

Yes, 2nd guy from the top required additional dispatching (a quick rap on the noggin).


Again, very simply done in the cast-iron pan - I have to admit, fresh yellow lake perch is one of the best tasting fish I've ever had. It was surprisingly good. I'm so disappointed I didn't try to limit out, that day they happened by my little stretch of shore. I haven't seen 'em since the season closed for the month of July.

Jay, I am deeply jealous.

Mhays wrote:Jay, I am deeply jealous.

Actually, I'm always jealous of your bass pics; I'd love to find some around where I live. We ought to swap tips on lures, bait and techniques. I've realized I've bought so many lures that I either don't know how to use or just plain don't work.