Mmacro maiden voyage yields double limit of trout - Cunningham 5-16-13

[mjonez23]

Just returned from having the pleasure of accompanying Mmacro on his first ever kayak fishing trip at Cunningham Falls. Day was a great success! Hit the water around 9am with rain and wind. Took about an hour to hook up with the fish. I had 2 trout by hour 3 and Mmacro had caught a really nice bluegill, 9.5". We then moved our set up and found a nice drop off where the water went from 22' to 32' within only a few feet. We set up on there for the rest of the day and quickly began pulling in trout and big bluegill.

EOD fish total -

mjonez23 - 6 trout , 4 bluegill : biggest 9.25"
Mmacro - 6 trout , 4/5 bluegill : biggest 9.5" also had the largest trout

All fish caught on night crawlers suspend about 4' or 5' off the bottom.

Mmacro, try and get a pic of all our trout together, meant to do that at the ramp before we left. We put a hurtin on them today!

image (7).jpgimage (4).jpgimage (5).jpgimage (6).jpg

[Mmacro]

1 nice bluegill.jpg2 nice trout.jpg3 final count.jpg4 relaxing after fishing.jpg5 on the grill.jpg7 more than 2 cups of liquid after.jpg8 ready to smoke.jpg9 cherry wood chips.jpg10 fire dog beer and smoker.jpg11 final product.jpg

Sorry for the delay in posting the photos… I thought I would add a nice dry brine/smoking recipe I have worked on since Alaska (where I had to deal with lots of trout and salmon on a weekly basis). Depending on how long you smoke the fish you can get a nice, tender and moist fish that is good by itself or chilled – but does not hold for a long time. Or you can smoke them till they are very dry and they are almost shelf stable. (we had friends send us salmon feathers, the oily belly strips, to us in Afghanistan and they made the unrefrigerated week-plus trip there without spoiling)

brine ingredients:

2 cups of brown sugar

1/3 cup of canning salt (or more depending if you want a salty or sweet end product)

2 tbs. garlic salt

2 tbs. onion salt

2 tbs. celery salt

2 tbs. dry mustard

2 tbs. fresh ground black pepper

2 tbs. fresh ground white and red pepper

2 tbs. chili flakes or powder

1 packet Adobo seasoning

Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Don’t add any liquids: the idea is the brown sugar and salt cure the fish and draw a lot of moisture out of them (8 trout resulted in more than 2 cups of liquid after brining). I use a potato masher to mix everything up.

You need a deep pan to cure fish in. Spread about ¼ inch in the bottom of the pan. Spoon the body cavity full with the mix and lay into the pan next to each other without touching, alternating the fish head to tail. Cover the fish with the rest of the mix. Make sure you have at least ¼ inch on top of each fish.

Cover with plastic wrap, place another heavy pan on top of the plastic wrap, and weigh down the pan with heavy cans or juice bottles and place in refrigerator for 24 hours.

After 24 hours remove from refrigerator and you will find a lot of liquid in the pan. Rinse with cold water, getting all the brine off. But don’t be to vigorous or long in the water rinse. Prop the body cavities open with a toothpick and air-dry for at least 30 minutes before smoking.

Letting the fish dry (don’t worry, the sugar/salt has cured the fish and it will not spoil on the counter) and develop a dull sheen is important for the smoking process.

Get the smoker to around 200’ to 250’, add the wood chips so the smoke is already going and add the racks of the fish. Smoke 2 or more hours. The 2 hours will make a moist, cooked fish texture. Smoking longer will start to make fish jerky (sometimes 4 or 6 hours) and concentrate the flavors.

Personally I like the fish jerky with a nice IPA that can hold its own against the smoke, spices and sugar/salt.

[mjonez23]

Awesome photos!! The trout look like they came out well, it was a pleasure fishing with you.