Fishing Thread

[BalthasarR]

Anyone else enjoying fishing here? Didn't find a good thread with search. I fish year-round primary with gillnets but I also use longlines. Practically all my fishing take place on the Baltic Sea (I'm not really a lake person).

Usually once or twice a year I set a net for baltic herring. This is because with baltic herring you either get nothing or you get far more than you need. Well today I got a bit more than I need - circa 30 kg:s. Good be worse though. It's easily possible to get more than 100kg:s with only one net when the timing is right.

Me, my relatives and friends will be eating fish for a while now.

[Jim]

Very interesting. How will you prepare them?

On the east coast of the USA we use spearing and Herring as bait.

[BalthasarR]

Very interesting. How will you prepare them?

On the east coast of the USA we use spearing and Herring as bait.

Baltic herring is a bit smaller and less fatty than atlantic herring. It's used widely as bait in here also, mostly by Salmon longliners.

Traditional finnish way is to simply roll the fishes in rye flour and then frie them in butter. It's pretty tasty when the fishes are fresh. I also make rolls of the fish fillets and boil them in light vinegar stock with some spices. When ready they look something like this:



The most freakiest thing to make from baltic herring is definitely surströmming. It is a traditional swedish dish and by far the smelliest thing I've ever tasted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming

Youtube is full of videos of people trying to eat this "Delicacy".

[Shave A Buck]

I do not recall ever seeing a Swedish restaurant. I wonder how much of it could go mainstream, might be that hole in the market for someone.

[BalthasarR]

Although I still have some baltic herrings to eat from last time I set some gear for whitefish. I got one small whitefish that I smoked same time with some baltic herrings. Mainly because I was too lazy to fillet it. Usually I fillet these small whitefishes and springle rough sea salt and fress dill all over them and set the fillets to fridge over night. Then eat them with some toasted ryebread and butter.

The smaller fish is called "smelt" (probably because it smells like fresh cucumber). It is extremely underrated fish here in Finland. It has very tasty roe and the flesh is quite good when fried. In Spring time I collect lots and lots of roe. Whitefish roe is also excellent but it won't spawn untill late fall.

Smelt get pinched to nets with relatively large eyesize because it has large teeth and it swims mouth open. Winter time when it's cold and hands are freezing it can be real pain in the ass to loosen from net For example with baltic herring this is not a problem. This time there was like 12-13 of these beauties in the nets.

[Unknownsoldier]

I love fishing, I'm a river person, but lakes will do at a pinch....



I've got a few more somewhere.... :D I love these fish.... they are just so well designed... :D

Nothing like sitting on a bank freezing cold, feeling going from every exremity and suddenly the line goes screaming off and your in for a fight :D

I don't however get the American fascination with fish length over weight.....

Tom

[Rudy Vey]

I do not recall ever seeing a Swedish restaurant. I wonder how much of it could go mainstream, might be that hole in the market for someone.

Just saw this thread, check out IKEA, they offer Swedish food in their restaurants and shop area (and all kind of herring in glass jars).

[Rudy Vey]

Here is one of my catches from last year, a King salmon caught on an eggsack with only a three pound fluorocarbon leader on a noodle rod while fishing for steelies. Took quite some time to get him in. My guide, who is doing this for over 30 years never saw such a size fish hooked and landed on the 3 lbs tippet.
I was totally exhausted after this, we battled for some 30 min, fish is approx 25-27 lbs.

[bandrus1]

The past 2 weeks

[BalthasarR]

Wow! Very nice. Is that the pike from Unknownsoldiers pic?

Where do you fish btw?

[Wilpar76]

I love fishing. Not only do I love the sport, but I love just being outside and relaxing. Most of my fishing is done from small inlets on the shore. I like it because it is so peaceful. I will go out at about 5:30 in the morning and there are no cell phone calls from work to answer, no traffic jams, no signs of the daily hustle and bustle of our lives. I will crack a beer at at 6:00 in the morning and enjoy the time. Catching a fish makes it all the more pleasurable.

All of my fishing is salt water fishing. As I said, on the inlets in the Chesapeake Bay or out on charter boats from Deale, Wenona, or Crisfield on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I just found out that the husbands of some of my wife's friends like to fish. We went on one charter together and we caught 6 rockfish. We are trying to line up another one for later this summer. Around July in Maryland, it will be a heavy croaker (hard head) and blue (or salt water pirahnas (sp?) as I call them) season.

The charters are expensive, but that is why we try to go with groups to defray the cost. I am not a big fan of head boats, because there are too many lines in the water.

[Duamuteffe]

Both sides of my family fish, so I've been fishing since I was very small. I have an early memory of being dragged slowly into the Allegheny, one step at a time, as a giant carp had a hold on my bait and even at four years old I wasn't going to let go of the pole. Luckily someone noticed and stepped in to intervene. We mainly do trout fishing on the various little streams that criss-cross the area, hiking up and down and all around (my father has a rule; no more than three casts on a hole without at least a nibble, so we can cover some serious ground in a day keeping up with him...) with the occasional jaunt down to the local lake on boring evenings (never catch anything there, though, it's just for the fun of it...) and the odd river fishing trip thrown in when my Mom decides it's been too long since she's had walleye.

[Unknownsoldier]

The past 2 weeks

Nice, what was the weight of the pike (Or is it a Muskie??) Looks about 15-18lb?

Tom

[Walker]

FISHING PICS!!!!! Here is a pic of a Mahi Mahi we caught while running from Hurricane Ike. We went down to the Bay of Campeche and hung out for a few days

Picture 017.jpg

[bandrus1]

I didnt weigh the pike because well, we wernt fishing for them.. They sometime latch on while we troll for trout.... id say between 14 and 16 lbs

[Unknownsoldier]

Nice, thats not a bad fish by UK standards, biggest we get is around 45lbs..... unnoficially a 50 is said to have been caught but I think thats dubious.....

Top picture: 10lb pike
2nd: 9lb Barbel
3rd & 4th 20lb Pike

I have caught some nice carp too, only maybe 6-8lb, not the 60lb ones you read about, carp to me though are such boring fish, little fight and they look generally rather horrible, all distended and blobby....

Tom

[_JP_]

Anyone else enjoying fishing here? Didn't find a good thread with search.

You missed this thread: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showpos...8&postcount=56

[jwhite]

I fish pretty regularly, down here its mostly pond and stream. So a lot of panfish, fair amount of cats, and some bass. I grew up on Lake Michigan, and that was was a whole different thing. I used to mate on my uncles charter in high school, a lot of steelhead, brown trout, and lake perch. some buddies and I used to go smelting as well. I deeply miss fresh smelt.

[Mycon]

I loves me some fishing, but I haven't had a chance to go this year. My fishing buddy spent the summer weekends becoming my brother-in-law.

A guy I worked with at my first job had fished professionally, so he agreed to custom build me a spin-cast rod if I bought the components.

Because of the size of this bad boy, it's hard to get it in-frame but:


For scale, the longer end of the handle is 12 inches (30.38cm)



It's got an Ugly Stik blank (not available anymore)
Carbon-fiber reel seat
Hardened-steel guides
Oiled Hardwood handle
Dark-green threading over the black lacquer

[BalthasarR]

Today's catch.



Some small flounders and a turbot from last summer. Just found the pic from my camera. Can't remember why I took it. Here it is anyway.