Living the dream!

Looking forward to coming to lazy mountain at the end of the month and spend 10 days in the area

Thank you for sharing with us I've really enjoyed your posts , pictures and stories !

What do you do with the hooligan?

bfisch I tried smoking them, they are ok, a little oily. Some people fry them. Mostly I will use them for halibut bait and shrimp pots. And rot a gallon or so down for trapping season. Pretty stinky stuff

I have heard they are pretty oil. Seems like they would make a good fishing bait.
When I lived in MN we would seine net smelt out of the lakes as soon as the ice went out. Most were only about 5-6 inches long. Very oily little fish with huge teeth for their size. Anyway we would cut off the heads, gut them, batter them, then deep fry them. At that point you could simply pull out the back bone and ribs all together and enjoy. Smelt also make good bait to catch pike.

I love them smoked. Just have to brine them right. So oily they remind me of Yukon King strips with how they would drip oil. I miss getting those.

-TJ

TJ care to share your brine recipe for them? The ones I smoked last time I didnt put in a brine just tossed them in the smoker. They were ok but always willing to try something new that could improve the taste.

HFT brines can be whatever you want. Usually involve salt and lots of folks like to add sugar. Brown sugar is good. You can also attempt to put hot sauce in the brine. I have benn trying for a few years to get a jalapeño flavour into a brine. So far unsuccessful

Just smoke a pound of lard.

martentrapper I know it can be whatever you want but if TJ already has a good brine mixture for hooligan that he is willing to share why reinvent the wheel I got it down for the salmon, well I should say the wife does, I just catch them The jalapeño flavour sounds interesting. I bet that would be yummy one with meat.

We used to use red table wine, Yoshida’s, and a bit of salt as the brine. We would gut ours before brining. I know many don’t bother gutting their hooligan.
At best, I could only stand a few, to munch on.



AV knows a pound of lard.

Let me see what I can dig up. Been a long while. Primarily was salt, but also a hint of brown sugar. The salt is what really helps. We would head and gut them and then brine. After smoking, just peal the skin and pull the spine out and eat, usually on crackers or just shove in your mouth.

My father in law used to cook them up whole in some marinara sauce.

-TJ

WOW! Blast from the past!

Hooligans look like smelt here in great lakes

Tried hooligan for the first time tonight. We bought a 5 gallon bucket full and the wife fried a bunch up. Pretty good.

HFT, I can't find it. It also seems that other recipes I had seem to have been "misplaced" Wife appears to have done some sorting of the cook books and the one I had with most of my recipes in it is "missing". I haven't done them in so long, I can't remember the amounts of fish/salt/brown sugar/water that went into the brine any more.

Muttered under my breath tonight that maybe someone needed to go to the White17 wife school and got a direct glare. Better go prepare my couch/bed for the night now....

-TJ

Those red heads require special handling ! I'll check to see if we have an opening in the remedial special-ed department.

Wife School

No worries TJ Sounds like she didn't care for those recipes Good one white!

Took a buddy down to Homer to see Wolverine Hunter and do a little bear hunting, always a pretty view form his place!



My buddy got a nice one. Him and Wolverine Hunter bailed outta the boat to look at a flat. 100 yards up and I watched him and my buddy jump from the river bank into the water and start moving at a fast pace, I knew they had spotted a bear. 5 minutes later I watched them pop up on the flat move about a 100 yds kneel behind a log, and BOOM. Bear down

We hunted two evenings. The first evening I was sitting and watching a flat when a bear walked out about 500 yds away. I slipped from my hide and tried sneaking in as close as I could for a shot up a little tidal drainage. Well the sun was killer that evening. right in my face and the drainage I took ended 265 yds away from the bear. I took my time and had one of those moments.... you know when you squeeze the trigger and you already know you missed.... sure enough right over its back.

The following night I went back to that same flat and decided to move closer to were the bear had come out the night before. Problem was there was no place to really sit and I decide to just lay down on top of a grassy knoll. It was beautiful out there, sunny and mid 60s In the course of the evening I hear a squirrel a few times in the wood line off to my right. About 10pm I hear crunch crunch, something walking towards me off to the right. I was thinking it might be that dang squirrel I peeked up over the grass and a dang bear was standing there less then 30 yds from me. I reached over and switched my safety off of the gun and the bear hear the click! He stood there for a few minutes looking my direction an them started eating grass. I rolled up my knees an and that was all she wrote for that bear



Always love a good hunt with good people

Be safe out there guys!