They are pretty good. I recently started filleting them backwards (tail to head). You get much more meat from them that way because the biggest chunk of meat is behind the head and with a diagonal cut you can get most of it
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Iāll have to YouTube that. Always trying to get more meat.
Iām pretty rough around the rib cage, where I could do better but itās too time consuming.
Sometimes on the smaller fish like sunfish Iāll clean them whole instead of filleting them. That gets all the meat, but again, time.
I donāt think I posted this yet. My latest tattoo:
When I take students fishing Iām going to ask them their name and then say āno way, I have your name tattooed on my armā. Then show them this.
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And when I say this, my spouse suggests that I shouldāve gotten idiot instead lol. For me, not the students.
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109 perch today. The kids had a ton of fun. Thew were exchanging Instagramās and one of them invited everyone over tonite for a fish fry, so some new friends were made.
Old man tired. I go to bed now lol.
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Bump for ice fishing season. I hate ice fishing.
I took three students ice fishing last weekend. Normally I take some burly engineers to haul all the equipment a mile or two across the ice. This time the convoy consisted of three women, none over about 5ā4" so I did most of the hauling.
All day sat and watched the fish float lazily around our bait. Pushed a camera down to the bottom and spun it around 360, and the water was full of 100ās of fish. Just sitting there. Suspended. Not eating.
I ended up catching 2 perch. The students had a couple of bites but had no luck getting them in.
Oh, and we had this great big brown fish swim lazily right past my hole in the ice, down about six inches. Just mozzied on by. That was pretty exciting. I didnāt immediately figure out what it was - but it was a burbot. Weird catfish head, eel body. But apparently delicious. Theyāre at the bottom deep in the summer so rarely caught. They come up in the winter so theyāre often targetted here because they taste so good. My buddy caught one ice fishing years ago, so now Iāve seen two.
I repeatedly warn students that if they catch a fish, the first thing theyāre going to do is grab their phone and video it coming out of the hole. And subsequently, drop their phone down into 20ā of cold water and never getting it back again. Well, nobody dropped their phone, but I did end up staring at the bottom of the lake and seeing both my fish descaler and one rod-reel lol. Tried to fish the rod-reel up, couldnāt quite get it. Thatās why I treat my fishing equipment as consumables these days rather than having a lot of very nice equipment that Iām careful with.
Looking like Iām going to be interviewed for an article shortly by the UWaterloo student magazine, as well as CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp). CBC interviewed me last year, they just reached out again.
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This link might not work if you donāt have the face book, but itās a video about ice fishing
I think burbot is a freshwater cod.
Yes, its called that,and ive heard it called fresh water lobster as well.
By all accounts very tasty. I cleaned the one my buddy caught and it was the nastiest smelling fish ive ever cleaned, but he said they loved it.
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I took 9 students to a maple syrup farm this morning
They asked questions for about an hour and a half. Not sure how you can get an hour and a half from boiling water butā¦
There was a bald eagle in the trees in the bush.
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Happy days.
I just sold all my ice fishing equipment to one of the fwn alumni. Thats the second time.ive bought it all and then sold.it all. I dont think.there will be a third time. The utility of not storing the equipment was greater than the utility of having the equipment available for next year. I detest ice fishing (i love taking students out though).
Ill have to figure out what im going to do between december and say april if not ice fishing. Maybe winter camping, but im not a fan of that either.
Snowshoeing maybe. I wonder what it would take to build snowshoes with a bunch of students.
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Also, I did actually estimate the relative utility of two events in order to make a decision. Hah! Nerd.
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One of the students wants to make mugolio. Which I had to Google. not sure itās something Iām interested in, but the making of it does involve a hike through the bush, so maybe.
Should be an interesting Saturday. Our local rod and gun club is hosting a wild game dinner. Moose, venison, goose, etc.
Relevant, Iām taking 4 FWN folks.
Relevant, the rod and gun club folks are deep country rednecks. Like some of them likely donāt get āinto the cityā more than once every few years. Thankfully, theyāre not the angry hateful rednecks, theyāre the ignorant but happy and accepting rednecks. Still, Iām prepared for some potential off colour comments.
Theyāre having a silent auction, which was an opportunity for me to donate an absolute ton of hunting and fishing stuff. I had a look at my closet and thought āwhich of these things am I keeping because I like it, but actually will never use it?ā. And, a scope, a range finder, a bipod, couple of fishing rods, I donāt even remember. It was quite a collection of stuff lol.
Iāve seen one of the execs of the club drop the hard n in front of a black guy. Apologized, and no harm/foul taken, but seriously dude.
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Wow, I canāt believe the amount of food. A variety of rabbit dishes, about 4 different moose dishes. Walleye, venison, wild turkeyā¦someone shot a turkey and donated it - thatās crazy. Turkeys are tough to get, if youāre lucky you get one a year. Anyway, I had a full plate and was stuffed. The students cleaned house, the guys went back three times lol.
They told everyone to eat everything on their plate. The woman in the picture likely weighs 90 lbs. She got 2/3s of the way through her meal and started to slow down. I was hoping she wouldnt leave a bunch of food behind. No worries, she was just slow. She polished off a big second plate as well lol.
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Relevant, the Indian guy peering around from the end of the table, one of the most amazing people Iāve ever met - ever. Heās justā¦ what a person. One of these days Iām going to be able to say āoh yeah, I know himā and everyone will be like wow, thatās crazy.
Iāve met a lot of very smart, very worldly, very cool people doing this, but heās beyond that.
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Last year some new Canadian guy bought something from my off facebook. We got talking fishing, and I agree to take him and his sons. I offered a couple of dates, he couldnāt make anything I had available.
Last communication was I think June 2024. He just messaged me asking if I had any dates available this year lol.
Fishing hasnāt even started for the year, Iām not sure the ice is even off the lakes, and Iām already getting booked up.
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Oh, some very good news!
If you scroll through the pictures above, thereās an indian fellow thatās been with me a lot, and in recent pictures his wife has been with us (theyāre in some of the fishing pictures and some of the pumpkin processing pics above). Theyāre pregnant, Iām doing a diaper party for him lol.
I think because of that, his wife just offered to make me some indian food. Sheās FOB from India, she made some Biryani for me last year and OMGā¦I canāt wait.
The funny part is, for the diaper party which will have mostly indian muslims, Iām making chicken wings and fries lol. I call it cultural appropriation. Indian people eating chicken wings, imagine that.
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Turkey hunting season starts this week and Iām trying to get about a half dozen students out on a hunt.
The first student Iām taking out has I think pretty severe anxiety. He came camping/fishing with us once and it was a small struggle. This time itās mostly just trying to keep him stable and not going off the rails. His minds going at 100mph.
Itās a pita, but I figure if I get him out a few times, heāll learn that he can do this stuff even with the somewhat debilitating anxiety.
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