Trash Fish?

So this is the thread that was mentioned in the Flounder 101 thread.

I have not heard about "suckers' in ages but remember catching them every once in while when I was a kid and rocks were softer.

I am not sure that there is any fish that I would catch and not eat except for tiny and under the limit fish like salmon fingerlings.

When I visit Dublin many years ago the locals took us out to a fish & chips place. Thinking American fish & chips I was not too excited until I saw the impressive menu of fish options. I became quite a fan or ray. The local skate and flounder/sole have become a bit of problem by taking over halibut beds when the halibut were over fished at all. The idea of people actually wanting to fish for flounder here (freezing the meat to zero F) makes the halibut guys happy.

I am meeting some folks taking a liking to skate too. It is sometimes sold as fake scallops and has a similar flavor and no real bones. We do have scallops and abalone near Sitka or about 80-ish miles from here. Oddly, I understand that the two largest giant octopi ever caught were off Sitka.



We have fish reports on the radio and I was shocked at how little commercial guys get for some fish. Octopus and squids averaged in the 1 to 2 cents/pound range last year! I would gladly hand them more cash than that at the docks (but that is apparently not allowed).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uLPtmCroQ8 (Worth watching)

Even though I have a nice older boat my fishing luck is terrible. It would help if I could get a harbor space over in Auke Bay which is much closer to good fishing and crabbing areas but the waiting list is long. My wife claims that she hates fishing but she is much luckier than I am and you should see her dive for her sparkly purple "my little pony" fishing rod when she has a fish on.   

Story time - my wife likes riding the ferries here but claims to hate little boats (especially sail boats ) So I was surprised when she let me buy the Bayliner even though the price was good. 20 minutes later it had a tasteful fall decor, a name that I can't spell, and no real pretense that it is not her boat. The main justification for getting it was to take our visitors fishing. Despite many plans and a few wasted airline tickets zero out of state visitors have gone fishing with us in two seasons.   

I have have had the itch to go let fish make fun of me the past few days since it has been in the 40s but it is still dark when I go to work and dark again when I get off.   

Rod Franklin wrote: Fish still bite in the dark. According to my long gone Grandfather, "fish don't bite in the rain." I think he just didn't like fishing for them when it was wet out. Wish I had a boat.

NOW I understand the saying: "The two happiest days in a man's life is the day he buys a boat and the day he sells it."

What you really want to wish for a is a friend who owns a boat.    So when are you coming fishing? http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=contacts.juneau

Three of us in CAP all own similar boats that none of us use enough. When we started hatching a plan to share one good boat the same wives who all resisted us buying boats quoted their "nesting instinct" (they also apparently were talking) as why they could not share a boat.

I have a few kayaks in the basement and found an almost unused electric outboard cheap so I am considering jury rigging something like this that I can tote around on my own without all the hassle of towing and launching a 25'.



Here the thought is that fish tend to bite better when its raining. Since we live in a rain forest I am not sure what these people are comparing it to. By the same token, since we mostly fish in the summer how would we know if fish bite in the dark?

Karl. Cool vessel !

At last count the basement contained a Fulboat, an inflatable kayak (not sure if it holds air), a folding boat, a nice 2-place kayak with a rudder (and maybe a sail?), and the very basic old style kayak that I sometimes take out. Alaskans in general tend to be pack-rats but I am about one step from being committed.

The electric outboard I have looks very much like the one in the picture and I am thinking about cobbling together a similar bar to mount it on then run it off those portable jump starter/batteries.

As a kid I caught and fried quite a few blue gills aka sun-fish and crappies.



Before owning this bigger boat I had no desire to own a skiff like yours but I now understand why so many local boaters downsize to a skiff.

We have a bunch of "trash fish" here, alligator gar is sold, I do not care for it, pretty strong, but we also have long nose, short nose and spotted gar, there are much smaller,alligator gar get to over 300lb these 3 rarely exceed 15 lb.
I like all 3, clean them with a skil saw, just saw a 1/2" slot from top to bottom , grab the ends with vise grips and pull.
We have yellow and black bullheads here, if from a pond or clear water they are very good.
We have plenty of both channel and blue catfishand they are decent is not too big, we try to keep the ones below 4-5 lb.
We also have the flathead catfish, has a square tail and gets very large, 120lb or more, has a lot of red meat which is very strong, a large one will only yield about 15-20 % eatable meat.
We have a number of sunfish, large mouth bass, crappie, blue gills, red eared, green sunfish , war mouth bass and others, several are pretty small and are not usually bothered with.
We have several suckers, big mouth, small mouth, long nose, white carp sucker and red horse all taste god but are full of bones.
The best way I have found to eat them is either pickled or canned.
Carp are here but often are strong and/ or muddy.
Again pickle or can them.These are all fresh water, the Gulf is just 90 miles away and there are plenty of salt water fish.
One thing we have here is plenty of crayfish, the 30 acre lake we live on is full of rusty crayfish, get large and are easy to trap, just takes a while to get a mess by removing tails and freezing them until you have 10-12 oz of tails per person.
Also have bull frogs here another great eater.