Last Saturday's trip to a delayed harvest area was successful. 2 browns and one rainbow. On the fly rod . All with flies i tied myself
I like catching Trout. Less a fan of eating them. Only ever fished them in Wyoming when I was there. Mountain lakes are full of them. Maybe it was the chef but it was certainly not the best freshwater fish I've had.
When I was a kid I like eating the small trout better, eat them like a smelt, bones & all. Yeah, that was often under the official 7” legal size. No I don’t do that anymore, just a thought.
Speaking of smelt, are many familiar? I just got back the other day visiting family, U.P. of MI, shore of Lake Superior. Growing up there it was comm9n to go ‘smelting’ in Spring, averaging the last week of April or so. Part of the or so, is how fast it warms up, then water temps in the streams. I think towards 50 is the desired temp. First off, smelt don’t run as thick as back in the 70’s then either side of that, but they do run. The smelt are still there, I think they may spawn in the lake. They also normally run at night. I was visiting, thought any run may be over with, but it’s only 2 miles to check two streams. Here’s my ‘pro tip’ for anyone interested. The standard procedure is to go to the river at dusk, wait & see if the smelt run. Doing so one may not see activity until midnight, if at all. My tip is to skip all that, go 1-2 hours before sunrise. Any smelt that do run will be in & up the river some, catchable. Also there will only be a few serious smelters going at it. I went at 0400 a.m., May 12th, kinda late season. It was also a slow Spring, with the warm ups. It took a little work but I caught enough for a family feed, gave some to my neighbor. I used knee high boots & a net. In the old days one may get 1/3 of a net full on a dip. I think my best may of been 8-10 max on one dip. More often I got zero, or 2. Just glad to see I could still do it, only 4-5 at the river doing so.
These were kinda on the smaller side for smelt, which is also good. One normally eats bones & all, especially the small ones, like a sardine. Yes, remove the head & insides, any scales are very small, not worth messing with. One normally uses scissors for clipping & cleaning. After that fry them like you would a bluegill fillet, lightly breaded in oil. You can use flour, I add a little seasoning, season salt or similar. One guy I met at the stream years ago told me when he gets a lot, he freezes batches with the guts in, cleans them as he thaws them for cooking. I haven’t tried that method yet. All around the Great Lakes smelting is a thing, much bigger years ago. https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/wnrmag/2019/Spring/back
