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Summer’s here and that means it’s time for those loveable, hard-scrapping, tasty and pint-sized cousins to sockeye salmon…kokanee. Lakes from Central California to interior British Columbia will be buzzing with activity over the next few months. Here’s a little photo propaganda to get you psyched! [click to continue…]
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Here’s the latest installment of our Name that Fish Contest. Now, before you answer, you have to ask yourselves…is this bizarre specimen found near Southampton, NY by budding marine biologist Mike Riehl a rarely-seen denizen of the deep? Or perhaps a previously undiscovered species (“Riehl’s Ratfish”)?
Or maybe something something the government doesn’t want us to see…
Take a look at the other photo of it and then you decide. [click to continue…]
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JD
Can a person eat shad? if so… how?
–Mike
Mike, well I must say that, though I’ve caught a zillion of them, I’ve never eaten one. On the East Coast (where shad originated) they are an important food fish and in fact, their scientific name, alosa sapidissima means “most savory.”
I don’t think there’s any question that the shad has some value as a food fish…after all, people eat other herrings all around the world. However, the big issue here is they’re full of bones — three rows of Y bones to be exact. In doing some internet searching for shad recipes, here are some of the quotes I found that may tell you all you need to know…
Jay Harlow at sallybernstein.com starts his article on cooking shad with this quote:
“Some foods seem to have been put on earth to challenge the ingenuity of the cook…”
Hank Shaw on about.com has this to say:
“From an eating standpoint, the American or White Shad is a mixed blessing. Shad are richly flavored thanks to a good bit of omega-3 laden fat, but they are among the boniest fish in the world. An old Indian saying has it that a porcupine fled into the water and was turned inside out to become the shad. It is not far off.”
So, I guess you can make your mind up from there…
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A felt-less sole on a wading boot? Are you kidding? Not if you’re Simms, which just released its new line of StreamTread wading boots that feature custom-designed rubber soles from industry leader Vibram. [click to continue…]
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JD,
We may actually get a salmon season here on the upper Salmon River in ID. I’m getting my gear ready and I want to try some back trolling with eggs and was wondering if you could give me some advice on the size of divers to try. The river should be running 5k to 8k cfs and most holes or runs will be 9-15 feet deep. I’ll run 30 lbs braid main line and 20 lbs leaders about 5′ from the diver.
Any help would be great, thanks for keeping up your web site.
–Eric T.
Hey Eric! Salmon? What do those look like? We’ve had two straight years of closures down here and I’m starting to forget!
Anyway, congrats for maybe getting a season! Believe me…enjoy every minute of it and don’t take it for granted!
As far as divers go, you can’t beat Luhr Jensen’s Jet Divers. You could probably get away with a Size No.
20, though it sounds like you have some pretty serious flow there, so I may bump that up to a No. 30.
Even in clear water, I don’t run anything lighter than 25-pound flouro for my leaders, so you may want to increase that as well. Kings don’t care about your leader in most cases!
For a detailed look at how to fish this technique, check out my article on Divers & Bait, which has some photos on how to rig up properly.
Good luck!
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Headed for a river that has salmon in it this summer and fall? Take some diver & bait rigs with you — it’s a super easy and extremely deadly technique that you can pick up in no time!
While there are several good ways to get a big, juicy glob of hot red sulfite eggs (or sand shrimp) down in the faces of river salmon, the ol’ diver and bait is often the first one to which I turn. [click to continue…]
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So, I had some guys out shad fishing on the American River last night and Mike O’Connell of Danville hooks into this thing that looks like a striper in the water…wait, no, is that a small king?? That can’t be a shad…what the hell is it?
Holy crap…that is a shad!
In fact, it was definitely the largest shad I’ve ever seen. My Boga had it at 6 point something pounds and a quick guesstamation put her at about 24-25 inches. Even at that, she was still a pound and change off the state record and 5 pounds off the world mark. Can you imagine an 11-pound shad? If these things got to 20 pounds, you’d never land ‘em! [click to continue…]
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Well, the Feds finally understand what we’ve all been saying for a looong time: The way the Northern California’s water is managed is a bad deal for fish like salmon, steelhead, sturgeon…and even, as it turns out, southern killer whales.
Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its final biological opinion that finds (surprise, surprise!) the water pumping operations in the Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species under the jurisdiction of NOAA’s Fisheries Service.
Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food. [click to continue…]
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