Cooking Your Catch

Nothing compares to cooking your catch immediately
after it comes from the water, whether cooking fish for
a shore lunch, steaming crabs on a pier, or frying
fresh-caught smelt.

Like many fishermen nowadays, Jeff didn’t want to take time out for lunch. A can of pop and a package of Nibs would do him just fine, he insisted. But I’m from an older school, and forced the issue.

While a pot of soup bubbled on the stove, I quickly filleted a few of the crappie we’d been catching, dusted them with seasoned flour, and fried them along with some frozen hash brown potatoes.

After that long pause and a hot meal we were more than ready to spend the rest of the afternoon out in the boat. And Jeff is now a confirmed believer in stopping for lunch.

When I was young, fishing was a more relaxed hobby. The idea was to enjoy a pleasant day on the water. If you happened to catch a few fish, that was gravy. There was none of the frantic, almost obsessive, pursuit of fish found among today’s anglers.

An important part of that gentler kind of fishing was a mid-day break, critical to which was cooking your catch right where you caught them. Shore lunch was an integral part of a fishing trip.

Not everyone has given up on the idea cooking your catch on site. There are anglers who still cook fish over an open fire on a convenient sandbar, along the shore, or on the pier. Indeed, sometimes it’s part of a tradition, such as those who enjoy the annual springtime runs of smelt on the western shore of Lake Michigan.

Smelt are caught in dip nets when they run in the shallows. But from the piers of Lake Michigan they use small gill nets and trolley lines. This is a nighttime fishery, where there’s lots of camaraderie, beer drinking, and kidding around. And, soon enough, you’ll be cooking your catch - there will be two or three skillets of oil heating, and flour- or corn-meal dusted smelt deep frying.

Quickest way to clean smelt (or other small fish), by the way, is with scissors. You snip off the head, cut down the belly skin, flick out the entrails with your thumb and the fish is ready to cook after a quick rinse.

You may prefer cooking your catch by batter dipping the smelt instead of just dusting them. For on-site cooking you want to keep this simple. So, before you leave the house, prepare your dry mix in a large zipper bag: Combine 1 cup flour, ½ cup cornmeal, salt, and pepper. On the fishing pier add one egg and enough beer to make a batter a little thicker than the consistency of heavy cream. Add the prepared smelt to coat them, and deep fry until brown and crisp.

A similar cooking your catch tradition exists for steaming blue claw crabs right where they’re caught. Steaming crabs is relatively simple, and the pot doesn’t have to be minded, so you can keep crabbing while they cook.

You’ll need a large steamer kettle, with a rack. In the bottom of the kettle combine about a half cup of Old Bay or other seafood seasoning, ½ cup salt, three cups white vinegar, and three cups beer. You want this mixture to remain below the rack.

To continue cooking your catch, fill the kettle by layering live crabs, sprinkling each layer with additional Old Bay. Cover the kettle with foil and the lid, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let simmer until crabs turn bright red, which takes about a half hour. Serve immediately.

Stream fishermen traditionally enjoyed a shore lunch of their own catch. Typically, filets of smallmouth bass, walleye, or other fish would be pan-fried in bacon grease, along with fried potatoes, baked beans, and lots of coffee. Many of us still pause to enjoy such feasts. And elsewhere I’ve detailed several ways of cooking trout and salmon right where they’re caught.

Cooking your catch can present a problem in today’s day and age though - it’s becoming more and more difficult to build open fires on beaches. What used to be a common practice is now often frowned upon, at best, or illegal, at worst. So, if your intention is to prepare your catch on scene, you may have to put a cooking kit together just for that purpose.

Heart of a kit for cooking your catch will be a propane or white-gas cookstove. You’ll need something larger than a backpacking stove, but, most of the time, a single burner will suffice. Or just use your regular two-burner camp stove. If you really insist on cooking your catch over live fuel, then bring a small barbecue grill instead. Something that will contain the fire.

There is almost never a flat work surface where you need one, so I keep a plywood “cutting board” with the stove, to serve that purpose.

Everything else you need should fit handily into a small tackle or tool box. Both the fish or seafood you’re expecting, and your preferred cooking method, will determine what else goes in the kit. But, at a minimum, I would include: a filet knife, a fish scaler, an oyster knife, a can/bottle opener, a set of kitchen shears, measuring spoons, measuring cups, and a spatula or fish turner. I’ve got a few seafood picks in my kit as well. Until you start using them, you can’t believe how useful they are for all sorts of cooking tasks. And I find a package of bamboo skewers handy as well, in case fish kabobs become part of the meal.

Matches or a throw away lighter should definitely be included. It never hurts to include a handful of zipper bags, in assorted sizes. And I always tuck a couple of large trash bags in my kit, to assure that all my garbage gets carried out.

Something else I include is a couple of dish towels. They really make on-site cookery a lot easier, all around, and double as hot-pot holders. I also keep a set of Kevlar gloves in my kit, both for filleting and opening shellfish more safely.