Paula's Trout - 1/2 of First Double

Two weeks ago, we took the canoe out on a lackluster 2010 maiden voyage.  So we took it out to Estacada Lake for the first time this year, and the Rainbow Trout fishing was HOT!  We were making our very first pass and BOOM, both Paula and I had fish on!  Double!

Jeff's Trout - Other 1/2 of Double

After we boated our Rainbow Trout, we tossed our lines out again and resumed the troll, and within a few more minutes, we had another double!  Paula and I were tied at two fish each!  At this rate, we should be finished quickly… or would we?

There were some big ones out there...

There were some good-sized trout in the lake, too.  We were using slightly larger hooks than everyone else, so naturally, our fish would be a little bigger.  I caught the largest trout this time around.  (Of course, it didn’t top Paula’s Super Trout)

Blue Skies for part of the day

I limited out quickly with my 5 Rainbows, while Paula was still on 2!  Paula, always dignified, refused to let me “help” her by leaving my rod out there and pass it to her.  No Pity Fish for her!  So, while she reeled in fish #3, I took time out to take some pictures of the sky.  It started out with nice blue skies, but then as soon as we got out, it switched to gray and drizzle.

Gray Skies and drizzle for the rest

But, we had our rain gear and were prepared, so as soon as we put on our rain gear, the drizzle took a hint and almost immediately stopped!

Paula's 4th Rainbow with the Hot Lure!

Even though she wouldn’t take a pity fish, she did take my hot lure and immediately, she started to hook up!  Here is Paula with her fourth trout!

YouTube Video Here once I post it.

Here’s Paula getting her last fish of the day!

o/~ It's the circle... the circle of Trout! o/~

Paula posed our two limits for a photo before we cleaned them.  Think of the Lion King theme song…

Preparing the Rainbow Trout for the Smoker

After eating two barbecue roasted rainbows for dinner, with mango slices and some bok choy, I prepared my apple-juice marinade to marinate the rest of them overnight to put them on the smoker in the morning.  These will be good!

So, I lead the 2010 Estacada Lake series.  Paula conceded defeat yesterday evening:

Jeff and I went trout fishing today and we both caught our limit! I must admit though, he limited out way before I did, and won fishing bragging rights of the day. We are going again tomorrow, and the race will be on again!

We’re going out again today to see if Paula can tie it up!

Alder Smoked Tuna

I was rooting around in the freezer in the garage and stumbled upon a vacuum-sealed package of albacore tuna bellies that I set aside for smoking last summer.  You may remember that I smoked some tuna bellies up not long ago.  This is the other package that I had from those same tuna.  Tuna steaks or fillets come from the “top” of the tuna from about the mid-section of the tuna on up.  The belly portion below the mid-section is kind of oily, and perfect for smoking.  Here are a few pics of the tuna fresh from the ocean.

In an attempt to improve upon near-perfection, I slightly modified the preparation.  First, we packed the tuna bellies in sea salt and let it sit in the sea salt for about 20 to 30 minutes.  I heard or read somewhere that the salt draws the moisture out of the surface layer and somehow “seals in” the moisture in the interior of the fish, leaving it tender and juicy inside.  After the salting stage, we rinsed the sea salt from the tuna and patted the bellies dry, letting them sit for about 30 minutes to air dry some more, before loading them onto the smoking racks and loading them into the Little Chief Smoker!

One pan of Alder chips for about 3 hours, then flip and toss in another pan of chips for another hour (long enough to get some cold beer) and then you’ve got a tasty tuna treat!  Darker beer seems to go a little better, so Newcastle was the one this time–I didn’t want so dark that Paula wouldn’t drink any.  Anyway, try not to drool on your keyboard!

Super Bowl Sunday Native Winter Steelhead

James and I hit the river early this morning to see if we could score a Gameday Winter Steelhead before the Super Bowl.  As you can see by the picture, we managed to get into the end zone for a score!  We got this picture seconds after getting the fish near the bank, and seconds before popping out the jig.  You can even see the water still dripping off this native winter steelhead buck!

James Fishing the Seam

I had my rod rigged up with my starters (some salmon eggs for a while, followed by another jig), but the ticket today was when I went to the bench and put our old pal, the pink worm, into the game!  My float danced down a nice little seam between some fast and slow water, and suddenly, the bruiser took my float down like a blitzing linebacker!!  It was strong as an offensive lineman, too, as for the first two minutes the fish was on, my reel was screaming like a packed stadium as he was taking line and heading downstream!  Imagine Chris Berman’s “He… Could… Go… All… The.. Way…”

Then, once he got out there, he did some high flying theatrics, getting completely out of the water twice!!  But after a short battle, I was able to get his head turned and pulled in for the score!  Touchdown!

James with the Float and Jig

Despite his bad cold, James was able to get his game face on and endure a few hours of fishing!  A steelhead for him would have cured him of his cold for sure.  Don’t worry, James, we’ll get you into a fish soon!!

Pink Worm Strikes Again: Native Winter Steelhead

Here’s another picture where you can really see this Winter Steelhead’s tail.  You can imagine that tail launching this guy out of the water like a big green football! Also, for all my non-fishing readers, you see that fin on the steelhead’s back right before my thumb?  That is the adipose fin and they get clipped off on hatchery fish, which is how I know it’s a native.

Anyway, this native steelhead was released unharmed a few seconds later to finish the trip upstream, where hopefully he’ll settle down with a nice steelhead hen and spawn another generation of biters like him!  Meanwhile, the Pink Worm was named the MVP of today, and is certainly having a good start to a Pro Bowl Season!

Jeff at Bonnie Lure Park

Early this morning, I met up with my MotoSport pal, James, for some Winter Steelhead Practice out on the Clackamas River, and then over to Eagle Creek.  (if we caught something, we wouldn’t have called it practice)  James hadn’t been out steelheading in quite a while, but after a few minutes, he picked up right where he left off!    Tossed all kinds of gear, bait, colors, scents, but couldn’t get a steelhead to even look.  Got to break in our 2010 fishing licenses somehow!

This pic is Bonnie Lure State Park up by Estacada.  A lot of people like to fish Eagle Creek for steelhead (and also Coho Salmon, when in season), but personally, my favorite is to wade across this stretch and fish either the Clackamas River or Eagle Creek from the island.  However, today, when the Estacada river gauge is at 13.7′, this stretch is just a little too high for my hip boots!

James took this picture, and if I had thought about it, I should have snapped his pic and posted it up here, too.  Next time!

Jeff with last steelhead of 2009

With 2009 drawing to a close, and still no steel on his 2009 tag, there were mere hours left for Jeff to get a steelhead.  After getting inspiration from another ifisher’s mega-hen caught yesterday, Jeff hit the banks of the river with fishing pal, Mitch (of Kevins Driftboat) in the pouring rain at sunrise for one last chance at winter chrome glory in 2009.  Obviously from the pic above, we pulled it off.  Read on:

Since 2010 has been unofficially dubbed the “Year of the Jig“, we were armed to the teeth with jigs of all shapes, colors and sizes, and covered a lot of water with them–sort of the jig warm-up for a hot 2010.  We had been skunked twice floating jigs at this same spot in the past 7 days, so we had our spinning and drift gear along as well for reinforcements.  Several hours in to the trip, with the rain reminding us what it means when an Oregon weather forecast says “100% chance of precipitation”, i.e. varying from hard to very hard, we started thinking that we’d end 2009 on a down note.  Mitch paused for a moment when his jig hit a rock and went down–Hold up!  That’s no rock, FISH ON!  Mitch got the party started.  The steelhead hen played a chess match to the death with Mitch’s light leader, the snags and the slippery rocks.  Mitch got her close enough to the bank to safely land.  I got the assist by popping her up onto the bank to seal her fate.

Mitch with his Last Steelhead of 2009

I had been alternating between my drift gear and float gear all morning, but with Mitch getting the rally started, I committed to the float gear and put my drift gear aside.  I had a jig that looked fishy as heck, so I tossed that, promptly snagged up and broke off at the knot and had to retie my whole rig.  This time, I went to the bench, and pulled out my old pal, the pink worm and rigged him up for some cold December action.  I worked my way back upstream through a fishy-looking seam full of rocks, didn’t snag or hit any of them, so I knew I was well off the bottom.  My next cast took the pink worm back through that same stretch, and something from the depths took that worm and headed for the ocean!  I was kind of caught by surprise, like “holy crap, did my float just hit a rock?”, and gave the rod a yank, and that winter steelhead hen on the other end gave it a yank right back, and it was game on!   I worked the fish back in toward the bank as Mitch made a video with his phone (if he posts it, I’ll link it below), while the fish made a few mighty runs, but in the end, I was victorious, as this trophy shot testifies!

Jeff with his First and Last Steelhead of 2009

Yeah, I know, Mitch has the posing for the trophy shot down.  I was just REALLY glad I broke off earlier and retied my gear, I probably would have pitched my rod into the river if the line broke on one of the steelie’s runs for freedom and I lost the fish!  (Note to self:  Retie the float gear once in a while!)

Jeff's and Mitch's Winter Steelhead Hens

My steelhead was about 28 inches, while Mitch’s was about a half inch to an inch longer, and as you can see by the pic above, just a tad brighter, too–cookie cutter hatchery brat steelies and when we cut them open…

Steelhead Eggs!

GOLD!!  Nice steelhead eggs!  I’ve got them out in the garage drying out to cure for bait.  We’ll see how they do in a later post!

Anyway, that’s the post for today, and right now, I can’t think of a better way to close out 2009!

The End

Siletz Coho Salmon

I would have loved to have had an actual photo, because that one was an awesome fish! Ah well, we still had a good laugh about it!

Fall Foliage in the Fog at Barton Park

Clark was in town from a golf tournament yesterday in the rain, so Clark and I hit Barton Park early this morning in the fog.  There were Coho Salmon rolling all around  The fog stuck around for most of the morning, but then, around 9am, it started to break, and at about that time, Clark got a strike and had it on for about 30 seconds, before it spit the hook, flipped us off, and swam away.  We didn’t see it close enough to tell, but it was probably a Steelhead or Coho Salmon.  But after that, it cleared off and turned into a beautiful day.  I should have got a picture of the colorful tree after the fog lifted.

We threw jewelry (spinners, spoons, and shiny jigs) as well as salmon eggs!  This hit was on one of my homemade spinners.   This also reminds me that I need to make a new batch of those…

Next, we drove up to Bonnie Lure park to check out Eagle Creek, as Clark never saw it before.  We saw the salmon swimming up the creek from an up-close-and-personal distance of a few feet away.  We fished there for a little while, but the fish were really spooky from all the angling pressure so we didn’t try really hard over there.

Anyway, at about noon, we headed back home to watch the Ducks vs. Huskies game and enjoy some smoked steelhead sandwiches!

OK, anyone looking at JkbWorld.com in the last week would probably mistake it for some kind of cooking site, with smoked tuna and clam chowder on the top of the page.  So, just to make sure that doesn’t happen, here’s some actual footage of fishing going on out at Barton Park on the Clackamas River.  Yeah, I admit, it’s a crappy video of me landing a Pikeminnow.  So let me set it up:  I tossed my line out and then got a text message.  I took my iphone out of the ziploc bag I usually keep it in to check the text, when suddenly, down goes my float!  I set the hook and felt something lightweight on the end.  So I switched my phone onto video mode, clipped it to my vest and reeled the bugger in.  Les Stroud of Survivorman would probably take a look at my crappy self-camerawork with the clip obscuring the view and shake his head sadly, while Bear Grylls would probably eat the Pikeminnow in disgust…

This next video is a quick pan-around up at Barton Park after I hiked as far upstream as I could get without going swimming.  There is a monster tailout before the water converges into a fast, deep channel.  As you can see, the salmon and steelhead fishing was REALLY slow, otherwise, I might be fishing and not goofing off making videos!

1 Limit of Ocean Shores Razor Clams

If you remember all the way back to May, we posted the Clam or Be Damned!! thread, that covered the trip that Paula, Clark and I took up to Ocean Shores to dig Razor Clams on one of the year’s lowest tides.  We all limited out on both days and had a ton of Razor Clams in the freezer.  Well, this past weekend was windy and cool, so I made some clam chowder with a few.

Razor Clam Chowder

Having never made Clam Chowder before, and not really following a particular recipe, just making it up as I went along, I was very happy with the way it turned out.  Hopefully, you’re looking at it and salivating, but if you’re not, you should be, because it was really delicious!  Read on…

The last time we cooked some of our Razors, we found that Paula was horrifically allergic to Domoic Acid, which is a naturally-occurring toxin in some Pacific Coast shellfish, Razor Clams, especially.  So, I’ll have to eat all the rest eventually, and as much as I like fried Razor Clams, I don’t think I could eat a whole pack without help, so some Clam Chowder sounded like a pretty good idea.  Some people may think it is a sin of some sort to make Clam Chowder out of Razor Clams, but I’ve had it before at Paula’s uncle’s house, and it was really good.  It seemed that the Razor Clams were a much nicer clam flavor than some others, and may be better fried than others, but it worked fine for chowder, as you’ll soon find out.

I’ve tried a few different kinds of clam chowder before (Paula and I taste-tested chowder through New England during the Acadia trip) and know what kinds of stuff I like and what kinds I don’t.  I like corn and bacon in the clam chowder, and don’t really like celery.  In addition, Paula’s uncle and Clark talked about how to make it as well, so between them and a few “reality check” lookups online and in a cookbook or two, I set out to make my own Razor Clam Chowder:

Here are the ingredients:

• 4 or 5 strips of bacon
• 1 medium sized sweet onion (Walla Walla) chopped
• 2 gold potatoes chopped
• 1 can of Santiam corn–or regular canned corn, I just like that kind
• About 6 Razor Clams
• About half a pint carton of half and half.
• About a handful of flour
• Oyster Crackers

Use scissors to cut up bacon into lots of little squares.  Fry bacon until it is cooked.  Dump chopped up onion into bacon and let it sautee until its soft.  Next dump the potatoes in and sautee them for a few minutes, too.  Then dump your corn into the mix (include corn water).  If you froze your Razor Clams in fresh water, go ahead and dump the clam water in, too.  Boil it until the chopped up potatoes are no longer crunchy–add a little water if it starts getting low (the corn water was almost enough for me), but I like it chunky and less watery.  Use scissors to chop up the Razor Clams and then dump them in, too.  Put in about half a pint of half and half and let it get up to a boil and then let it simmer for about 20 minutes.  Taste a piece of clam and if it tastes done, it’s done, otherwise, go for longer.  I mixed in some flour, about a handful, which thickened it up nicely.  Finally, add Oyster Crackers and mix well.  Bon Appetit and Enjoy!

If you try to make Clam Chowder using the recipe above, post a comment and let me know how it turned out for you!

Smoked Tuna! Are you drooling yet?

I saw this thread on I-fish about Smoked Tuna, and decided to give it a try on the Little Chief Smoker on Saturday while watching some football!  We had some leftover tuna from canning that I was saving for just this occasion.  Needless to say, I remembered that I was going to take a picture after we attacked it so there was a bunch missing.  Otherwise, it was TASTY!  See below for the recipe…

Reading through all the threads on I-fish, with all of the different salt concentrations and flavors and stuff, I opted for the simplest one:

1. Cut Tuna into smaller chunks
2. Put on Smoker
3. Use 2 pans of Alder Chips in the first two hours
4. Take off after 4 hours total
5. Eat Smoked Tuna.

The tuna was a little dry, but it was also pretty oily, and would go really nicely with a medium or dark beer–maybe a Newcastle.  We had some MGD on hand, and it tasted just fine, too.

I also invented a new way to clean the smoker racks!

1. Remove tuna from racks
2. Try to scrape the tuna fragments from the racks
3. Notice three sets of eyes watching hopefully
4. Put towel down on kitchen floor
5. Lay smoker racks on floor
6. Get your hand out of the way quickly!
7. Watch the cat feeding frenzy!

Next time, I may add a little salt and pepper, and shorten the smoking time.  I think my tuna pieces were a little too thin for 4 hours smoking, but for my first time, I was pretty happy with it.  I sprayed the racks down with no-stick spray, but I may not have used enough, since it was a pain to clean this time, so I’ll try more next time.

Last time Clark and I went tuna fishing, or maybe it was salmon fishing another time, one of his friends had some smoked tuna, which was more moist and had a slightly different flavor, and I’ve got another vacuum-pack of tuna bellies ready to go in my freezer!