Trout

Da worst ting about smokin fish….

Is keepin ’em lit!

I know I know, bad joke!  But was thinking about years back and how lots of fishermen’s stages had a smoker on the side of them.  I don’t recall any ever in use, but Roy’s stage back in Apsey Brook had one, and was often a good spot to hide when playing hide and seek. It was just a tin lined “chimney” with nails sticking out going up the sides.  Roy, and of course whoever else used them would hang caplin or herring up in them, light a fire at the bottom, generally with alder wood, and smoke them to make… well smoked caplin and kippers!

I love the taste of smoked fish of all varieties, and when we got a little older, Eric and I bought a little electric smoker between us.  Had a little element in the bottom with a small pan, and we’d add wood chips and let them smolder to smoke our own kippers, and lots of other things, but mostly trout and our own moose and beef jerky!

We could buy all kinds of chips, and of course get our own alder, and sometimes apple and others.  We’d experiment with making different brines to add different flavours (hmmm did I ever tell the story of “Who put the salt in the punch?”) and smoke lots of different things, including trying cheese on one or two occasions.

Junior Patey used to love trouting, but he was never really find of the trout, so he’d freeze a lot for his family, but one day he tried the smoked ones Eric and I made, and he loved them, and whats not to love? Its like fish bacon!  Anyway, over the next few weeks he emptied his freezer of trout and smoked them all!

I know Eric still smokes stuff now, and I do too, tho for me its smoking bought stuff as there’s not many trouting holes here in the city (plus I have no idea if half these weird fish up here are fit to eat anyway, I liked that we had trout and only trout back home).  Eric sent me up some jerky he made last year, and I think it lasted all of 20 minutes, cause I was sparing it along!

Anyway, keep yer fish lit, and have a smoky ole day!

Troutin’ with da byes

I’m not sure what year it was, or even many of the details now, but one summer many moons ago, there were tales of huge sea-trout coming up the brooks and rivers of southern Newfoundland.

Always up for trouting, and also for a chance to explore more of our great province, Eric and I decided to go have a look and see what we could find.  Another one of the gang, not necessarily a usual suspect in all our schemes, but a gang member all the same, Cory Avery took the trip with us.

We got up one morning, packed up our tackle and gear, and headed west out the highway, and then out around Bishop’s Falls, took the Bay D’Espoir highway south, driving down past Conne River and seeing places and sights that were all new to us.

This part of the province is pretty remote, but beautiful beyond belief, with gorgeous coves, beautiful ocean and beaches and rivers.

We really had no idea where to go, and I’m not really sure that mattered, but we made our way to Head of Bay D’Espoir and found some promising looking bridges and brooks, and tried our luck.

Unfortunately, no trout were to be had that day, but we did explore and see a lot, including a trip in what I believe was a power utility road to a lake that was dammed for power.   In there we also tried our luck, but again no trout.  Eric (I think it was Eric) did hook and bring ashore a ouananiche (landlocked salmon).

We farted around a bit more down in this area, and then packed up and made our way back home.  The packing up though will be something I’ll always remember, because I broke the tip off my prized rod closing the trunk.  I’m sure it was nothing fancy, but it was one I got during the closing sale of the old Chain Store, and I loved it, best rod I ever had.

Anyway, another story and trip to remember for a lifetime :).

The “Salmon”

One of my and my best friend Eric’s favorite past times is trouting.  When I still lived back home, we’d often head off for a day around the ponds as I’ve mentioned in other posts.  But we weren’t always in the mood to walk for an extended time to a pond, so sometimes we’d just pack up the car and drive to some easier location.

Generally brook trout are pasty and white fleshed and not very good eating.  There are exceptions though, and one of these was Ryder’s Brook, just past George’s Brook, on the road to Harcourt.  There we could get some nice eating trout, and if you were lucky a salt water trout as well, which were extremely tasty.  Years back the road looped in around the brook to a narrower location, but sometime more recently the road was straightened, and a new bridge added.  This old section of road, and the old bridge remnants offered an ideal spot to pull off the road and pools and eddies to fish in.

One Sunday Eric and I decided to head over, and while the trout weren’t plentiful, we were getting a few.  After a while Eric hooked into something unusual, it fought hard and took a bit of work to get it ashore without breaking the line. We got it in and looked at it, and while neither of us were experts as we didn’t really do any fly fishing, though I think Eric may now, we both agreed it must be a small salmon.

Well the problem with that, is that Salmon are regulated, and catching one the way we did carried a heavy fine, and more.  But there was also no way we were throwing it back, I’m not sure it would have survived anyway.  So we, nervous as cats, got it into the trunk and covered it up. While we’d never been asked before, fish wardens were common in those times, and wouldn’t have been unusual for one to stop us, or drive down to the brook to chat.

We packed up the rest of our gear and took it home to Dad for confirmation or better identification.  Once there, we realized, thankfully, our nervousness had been for naught, as what Eric had hooked was in fact an Arctic Char.  Still a pretty rare catch back in those days, and it also turned out to be a rare good meal.