07crawler

you don't have to scale trout..just fry em up and eat em...the skin comes right off after cooking

Cruiser

But,, if you scale it can you eat the skin too? like salmon? same type of fish, but smaller?? with salmon while frying you separate the skin and keep frying it till it looks like a piece of bacon,, very tasty w/soy sauce..

Dizzyliz

I've never scaled a trout.

BaltChief

only_in_my_jeep

Folks here are right about trout but we were talking bream and even rock bass. You can fillet and skin them but I am talking smaller fish (with bream as small as you feel like cleaning as long as there is no legal size limit BTW the small ones taste as good and sometimes better than larger) whole and on the bones. If you run a spoon, butter knife, or other dull impliment from the tail to head applying some pressure and a little angle (experience will help) the scales come right off. You then gut, head and wash the fish before dredging in flour and putting it in hot grease. The fish gets crisp and the tail (yes you can eat it) crisps up and tasts like a fish potato chip. Larger fish can be filleted and skined which require some skill. Trout are best just gutted (gills pulled but head left on) with the inside salted, peppered, lemon squeezed (with remains put inside), and some butter added to the mix. You then wrap in foil and put into a bed of hot coals for a bit (cooking time varries) turning once. You can also bake/broil them the same way in the oven but it lacks some of the mood.

I know all about the bait vending machines including the cost of the machines, bait cans to fit them, and such because I thought about getting a few to set up myself. As I said worms will give you the most and most varried bang for the buck. Since it is a lake you should also have smallmouth, largemouth catfish (maybe), and a host of other species. Of course if you were using a boat it opens up a whole new level of options to which you just hand your credit card over to Bass Pro and get started. The basic all around tackle box should have a variety of hooks, floats and weights (live bait fishing); slip weights and hooks for plastic worms, a small assortment of plastic worms (find out the best colors for your lake is best but generally a handfull with some dark and some light) for largemouth/smallmouth; some rapallas (bass as well as other species if present); some spinnerbaits (both for small panfish and larger for bass and other species) round things out. Now you don't need all of these things to have fun fishing but if I were planning a trip somewhere near fresh water but I was not sure what species was available (and to some point lake, river, or stream which I would prefer to know because the smaller the water the smaller my tackle to a point) this is a basic assortment of what I would have. Now this list varries as I get species specific and the more I know about a place but overall this is a starter tackle box. BTW the list varries a bit for salt water but some of the basics remain the same as far as weights, hooks, floats and lures however they do get bigger depending on the current and size of the baits. Replace plastic worms with curly tail grubs and jigheads (other jigs too), replace rapallas with mirror lures, replace spinnerbaits with spoons and you got a basic saltwater box.

bly109

Dude, you are making me hungry

only_in_my_jeep

Me too, since I do not want to take too many out of the pond I was thinking heading to the lake for a bit. Then I rcalled it is July and I had not renewed my license (they go out the last of June) since I have been fishing the pond and not needed it anyway. Well I just got done doing it online (did not know I could do that and had planned to get one tommorow afternoon/evening while in town) and I must say it is well worth the $3 extra for the convience of getting it from home. In the mean time the heat got to me and now fresh fish will wait till tommorow at the earliest.

AK4Dave

I don't know how you expect me to think about fishing, when I can't take my eyes off that nice orange Jeep t-shirt of yours.......ha!!!!

Yesterday I took my boy and a kid I work with to a little spot on the Kenai river again here in Alaska. Brought home 5 nice red (sockeye) salmon. We released probably another half dozen that were a little too "red" or "spawn'd out", for my liking as the meat starts to get too soft the longer they are in freshwater. All we use to catch them with is a hook with a little yarn tied to it, or a fly. We, what you call, "flip" for them. Which only means that we flip our fly out there a few feet, with enough weight to get it on the bottom, let it roll downstream a few yards, lift it up, and "flip" it out again. Over, and over, and over again....!!!!

Salmon are a different breed of fish to catch when they start moving up into the freshwater rivers to spawn. You see, when they leave the ocean they don't "feed" anymore. King, Cohoe, and Pink salmon only strike out of spawning aggression, but they will actually hit a lure or salmon eggs. The Sockeyes, on the other hand, are much different yet. Even in the ocean they only eat plankton. So when they start up the rivers, basically the only way to catch them is to run a fly across their mouths. There is still a long ongoing controversy as to weather a sockeye will hit a lure or not. I for one, as many others also feel, that they will not, until they get really far into their spawning cycle. Then, and only then do I feel they will be agressive enough to actually hit a lure. Other than that, when trying to catch them when they are still nice and bright from the ocean, you can only try to find a little trough that they are moving through in high concentrations and actually try to drag your fly across their mouths to hook one.

The Kenai River is a glacial river with glacial "milk", so you can't see very well into it after only a few feet deep. So you are actually trying to do this all by "feel". It gets very frustrating sometimes, as these fish will come up from the bottom and "roll", or dart on the surface all over the place and yet you are having a hard time catching one....!!! We have gotten some rain, so the water was a bit higher, and we were actually standing right in there with them in water up almost to our chests. They are ferocious fighters and jumpers, and once when I was fighting a big male, he jumped out of the water and almost hit me when he came back down...all kinds of fun!!!

Anyway....just a little salmon fishing 101 I thought you might enjoy....

Good fishing...!!!

Dave

JKGirl

ok so I have come a long way with fishing!!! I bait my own hook... and take the fish off...( when I have to )
Had a great weekend fishing

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fish

nice jkgirl,love it when i go on my ovenight,two,three day ocean trips out here for albacore and there is a hardcore lady fisherman on board.usually she is the first one to the rail and outfishes most ot the men on board.