great night spearing
- Thread starter misfire
- Start date
Man oh Man, the spring "creek sucker" run. That sure takes me back to my younger days.
Spring is great . Loved suckers and smelt
Moved south now only have sheep head to spear and shrimp to dip . What do you do with a 5 gallon bucket of shrimp ? Larry
Moved south now only have sheep head to spear and shrimp to dip . What do you do with a 5 gallon bucket of shrimp ? Larry
I remember as a kid we'd go wading at night with lights in the rapids on local streams. There was a season for spearing that wouldn't be open yet when the suckers were running but catching by hand was legal. That was a lot of fun sneaking up behind them and grabbing one or two and tossing them up on shore. My buddy's uncle would smoke a few and pickle a few...good memories.
not sure how to describe the taste it's still fishy but it's mitigated quite a bit by the smoke the Brian does the important part it removes a lot of the fat the smoking removes the rest gives the fish a wonderful flaky texture and softens the smaller bones to allow you to just eat them.Misfire,
Just curious what they taste like. Smoked anything sounds quite good.
Paul
smoking let me make some of the best wild turkey and wild goose jerky you've ever tasted, there a wonderful tool. not to mention the bonus that you can store it indefinitely in the freezer with very little fear of freezer burn because most of the moisture is been removed
Nice catches! I've been trying to go with my uncle, he always told me how fun it is but I can't seem to find when they're running. He tells me they pressure cooked them and mix into cakes and fry like salmon cakes. I Live in foothills of NC.. Does anyone know a exact promising time to go? As to.. Water temp, moon phase, trees bloom??
Wow this takes me back 40 years! We didn't wait until night fall. Early April we would start getting the suckers(red horse). At first we tried spears, but advanced to dip nets. Then we found the honey hole! The creek got about 12' wide and 2' deep. They would stack up in there. We would then take the smelt net. We could fill a cooler full within 30 minutes. Here's another option that we did with some. Filet them then run the filets through the meat grinder. It wound take care of the pin bones. A little egg and seasoning in the mix to make fish patties. The ground fish also froze easily. My son goes out ice fishing on Green Bay for the Whitefish. I would smoke some, and grind some of these also.
I wish I had good childhood memories of catching fish and eating them....my grandfather used to get hickory shad. I think they are endangered now...and brine them whole. Then when they were nothing but a salt block shaped like a fish he would let us sew a string thru them so they would all hang together and put them on the wall of his nasty old wood shed, guts, head and all. These things had so much salt infestation even the mice wouldn't touch them. After completely drying up for a couple months to the consistency of compressed cardboard we would take them down and he made us make this homemade hot sauce out of home grown {and dried the same way minus the salt}, Tabasco peppers. We would grind them to a red powder and mix it with some kind of nasty vinegar. I only ever tried to eat one petrified fish with red hot sauce on it. That ended my childhood fish eating. A dragon couldn't have ate that hot sauce. I can still see those disgusting things hanging up next to the red peppers, covered in cob webs and dust.
Edit: I just remembered, when he first caught the fish he would squeeze out any roe and sit there and slop that down with bread. GD I think I'm going to get sick.....
Edit: I just remembered, when he first caught the fish he would squeeze out any roe and sit there and slop that down with bread. GD I think I'm going to get sick.....
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Different scenario, when I was small, had an uncle with a 30 gallon pressure cooker. We would go seine the bayou, what ever came up, we scaled, gutted, skinned, what ever and threw into the cooker. Bones were like nothing when that pressure cooker was done. Couple of fills of that pressure cooker, then the mix was canned in jars.
They would usually pull the bass, crappie and catfish out for enough to fry while we were running the pressure cooker cooking and canning.
Those canned jars of fish made the best crockets I've ever ate.
They would usually pull the bass, crappie and catfish out for enough to fry while we were running the pressure cooker cooking and canning.
Those canned jars of fish made the best crockets I've ever ate.
Usually around here ( Iredell County, NC), thee suckers run in early to mid March. Any tributary to either the south Yadkin or big Yadkin, New or Broad rivers should have a decent run.
Thank you very much Gary!!! Will be looking forward to that next year
Yep , loved catching them in the creeks , dipping the creek mouths was a blast too . We would sometimes get a grain sack full , talking about a lunk to carry back up through the field . As said fixed like salmon cakes , and the eggs , holy moly , my grandma could fix fine fish eggs , they where loaded with them . Yeah , that's some good memories . Kenneth
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