-
ICMag and The Vault are running a NEW contest! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!
TOTALLY RANDOM POST II
- Thread starter minds_I
- Start date
moose eater
Well-known member
moose eater
Well-known member
hole
e
shi+
that is a nice haul man!
are they going to the smoke house or do you cut some of those into fat steaks too?
and those are all caught by net
rock and roll brother!
moose eater
Well-known member
All caught by nets of 2 different sizes of hoops and webbing/netting.
My intention is to cut 'strips' to do the traditional Native style river strips with some, and the remainder will get smoked as whole fillets.
My daughter is bringing 4 Copper River fillets, give or take, to Valdez to hand over to me when we head out for halibut, rockfish, lingcod and whatever else we get into there this coming Saturday. I might save those 4 for baking or sautéing, as they're already properly sealed in good poly bags.
The 56 fillets that are currently wrapped in sort of bulk bundles looking like bedrolls on the top shelf in the larger freezer are cold curing so that I can smoke them at lower temperatures and not worry about parasites too much.
The traditional Native style strips will be done at between 70 and 95 degrees over a longer period of time with very minimal brine time in a brine with nothing more than a 100% solution of either pickling salt or rock salt, and the urban white man fillets will be brined much longer in a brine with brown sugar, salt, maybe some maple syrup and soy, then, if they're to be flavored at all, you get a lot more mileage from the seasonings or flavorings if they're basted on with a brush after the pellicle has set up on the meat. Otherwise, it simply gets lost in the salt and sugar brine.
Years ago, I could open up one of the larger freezers in the back freezer room and have maybe 100 smoked fillets in there, take one out, thaw it, soften up some cream cheese, add some fresh chives or green onions, a touch of fresh garlic and/or minced ginger, some Worcestershire sauce, a dash of Tapatio or Sambal Olek sauce, etc. and mix that stuff up, put it on crackers and not have to worry about dinner or lunch. Living like kings and queens, we did.
It was nice.
Empty Nest syndrome and loss of cohesion temporarily with our kids ended a lot of that. So, I'm making an effort to bring back the things that were special that made our times a little bit unique.
And my daughter, as much as I cringe at some of her ego shit she's often still oblivious to, despite being 30 years old, has caught the fishing bug I tried to share with each of my children. And for me it was always as much recreation, good food, good dope, good beer and alcohol, and solitude in the middle of nowhere, as it was an Agnostic's spiritual thing, asking the Cosmos, "What do I deserve today? What have I earned the right to ask for?" And keeping my family fed with amazing grub that was offered up by the environment.
Last edited:
that is awesome man and it sounds like you got a nice haul, and your next stop is someplace where you are going to catch rock fish and halibut! those are good eating fish
oh wow man, i never thought of the brining process and how it could affect the outcome of the meat
so you dont go for the sweeter sugar and soy brine? that sounds ok but i just like the taste of smoke myself
cream cheese on home made salmon with chives? do you do take out?!
i was recently bellyaching about the young ones in another thread, but i dig it man and kids go through phases
glad to hear you and the girl can at least bond over fishing
oh wow man, i never thought of the brining process and how it could affect the outcome of the meat
so you dont go for the sweeter sugar and soy brine? that sounds ok but i just like the taste of smoke myself
cream cheese on home made salmon with chives? do you do take out?!
i was recently bellyaching about the young ones in another thread, but i dig it man and kids go through phases
glad to hear you and the girl can at least bond over fishing
moose eater
Well-known member
Yep, kids, including myself as a youngster, go through our James Dean period gyrations. Some worse than others.
But cancer puts a clock on everything. Wondering sometimes if they'll keep their heads up their asses until after I'm buried in a spruce box in the back yard.
I've put long-time friends and my family on notice that if they weren't able to muster the courage to resolve shit face to face before I die, not to bother showing up to speak some remorseful disingenuous shit after I'm cold. They won't be welcome. My dogs and maybe, maybe my wife will be there.
If you want sweet smoked fish, it's best to add the basting of that after the pellicle is formed and it can be put on the fish directly, rather than lost in a 5-gallon bucket of brine where the flavors and the cash you invested into them are also lost.
An old butcher and former charter skipper I knew, Vietnam era Marine, Force Recon, a wonderful man, smoked a lot of meat and fish over the years and helped to cut our moose for decades. A good guy. He played around with various alcohol additives to flavoring after the initial brining, including schnapps of various sorts on salmon and salmon shark.
There was some coconut liqueur that he tried on halibut that I thought was horrid, but his schnapps on the salmon shark was pretty tasty. And they can get pretty huge, so the meat haul is nice.
Yes, the rockfish, while typically fairly small fillets, is best with simple butter and salt/pepper, touch of garlic and maybe a bit of lemon or lime sauteed in a skillet. They're a delicate meat for sure.
The lingcod, we use the same tempura beer batter we whip up for deep-frying as we use for our halibut. That stuff's addictive, and easily as hazardous for me as the tamale habit I have.
Last edited:
Ugh. Today we are going to a friend's house for lunch. They live near the Annex part of Toronto in a century + semi-detached house. That means hideous traffic to get there, grab it if you can find it street parking and hideous traffic to get home. And their street is under construction so we have to find a spot somewhere else and walk. What fun.
CharlesU Farley
Well-known member
Ca++
Well-known member
It seems people that strive for their own personal identity, often cast themselves so far out, nobody wants to identify with them.
The Alphabet beginning with L, is a great example.
moose eater
Well-known member
moose eater
Well-known member
By the way, post number 7741 is a king/chinook salmon of smaller but decent size; perhaps just over 20-lbs., and feisty as a bastard initially.
But I was required to release it, as Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game biologists had ordered the closing of retention of king/chinook salmon for personal use/dip-net fishing on that river about 3 days earlier; not a new experience for me, and sometimes involving larger fish than that one... MURPHY!!!
As I released that fish, I noted that the struggle it had endured against the rocks had not done its energy levels any favors, and initially I considered (and still do) its viability regarding continuing on its course to the fish orgy upstream. Meaning there was at least as great a likelihood as not that the fish would die and either turn to carrion, or compost, and that the release of the fish was likely a form of wanton waste. But I complied with the law and the closure on the kings, as I didn't wish to forfeit either my legal fish or fishing rights.
"And so it goes..." (Vonnegut)
But I was required to release it, as Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game biologists had ordered the closing of retention of king/chinook salmon for personal use/dip-net fishing on that river about 3 days earlier; not a new experience for me, and sometimes involving larger fish than that one... MURPHY!!!
As I released that fish, I noted that the struggle it had endured against the rocks had not done its energy levels any favors, and initially I considered (and still do) its viability regarding continuing on its course to the fish orgy upstream. Meaning there was at least as great a likelihood as not that the fish would die and either turn to carrion, or compost, and that the release of the fish was likely a form of wanton waste. But I complied with the law and the closure on the kings, as I didn't wish to forfeit either my legal fish or fishing rights.
"And so it goes..." (Vonnegut)
Last edited:
sometimes things work out, but almost NEVER where you can see it happen. i released an undersize smallmouth bass once that was bleeding from its gills where it had sucked my lure down. i knew it was dying, it probably knew so too. i turned it loose and was watching it drift off when an osprey settled all accounts by diving on it less than 20 feet from me. mother nature does not let protein go to waste...
moose eater
Well-known member
I've got pics from the spot behind my camper van in the sand bar shortly after 4:00 A.M. with the sky's light pretty bright on O'Brien Creek the morning we went downriver to dip-net, with 5-6 bald eagles (some of them younger, with the still-mottled coloring to their feathers) and a couple of large, well-fed older adult bald eagles, waiting for more of the carcasses to wash downstream from where people were cleaning lots of salmon near the creek.
On an adjacent spot, maybe 20 feet away, were seagulls, also eating sockeye salmon carcasses, and at another spot there were ravens doing the same. I noted the very clear segregation of the species. None of them wanted to fuck with the eagles over grub apparently, so the eagles pretty much took dibs on what they wanted.
All of those pics and the ones from last later winter's/early spring's solo ice fishing trip into the Wrangell-St. Elias Range are on my flip phone and I'm a technical idiot by choice, so I'm awaiting help to post maybe three different expeditions' photos.
I've only once cleaned fish in that river, as the silt is so thick in that river's water that any exposed meat is immediately impregnated with micro-particulates of glacial silt. If I can clean them in a nearby clear-water creek like Haley Creek or O'Brien Creek then I do.
IN the past, with any access to clear creek water with a good flow rate, I might've considered filleting that king salmon and placing clean skin-on meat in sections of the side fillets under a bag or something in my food and beverage cooler, then the food and beverages back on top. But such resources weren't available. So, I can only hope that king made it to the orgy upstream and made lots of baby king salmon.
Last edited:
plague ? fucking wonderful ! that goes great with the news yesterday about the ticks spreading a disease that makes you allergic to red meat... ( i think PETA is behind that, myself ) and i won't even bring up the cases of dengue fever that mosquitoes are causing ...
moose eater
Well-known member
TB has been making a come-back in our remote villages and elsewhere for a number of years now. I no longer share doobies with hitchhikers for a LONG time, well before COVID. If they wish to get high on my weed, I roll them their own joint.
Loss of a joint here or there, versus TB? Let me think on that from a cost-benefit analysis perspective for a moment...
Loss of a joint here or there, versus TB? Let me think on that from a cost-benefit analysis perspective for a moment...
moose eater
Well-known member
In my world, city living or even extended visits require benzodiazepines. No exceptions.
