Fishing With an Old Friend...

An old buddy, Darwin came into town for a fishing trip. We let him catch big fish. It was the only fish he caught but some people are like that, going for quality unlike those people like Cathy who who fish in a rage of getting them all out of the water before they use up all the air in it leaving the lake a dead space where nothing survives.  

Luca enjoyed the fishing trip. When you pull a catfish in the boat Luca says, "I eat it, I eat it." Only problem was that his momma showed up to fetch him back about the time we were cleaning the fish and preparing to fry so later on he probably sat at home thinking, "They ate all that fish I caught and did not leave me any."

Darwin and Luca share a boat lunch

Here's a new toy that for about $12 looks to make my life better. I occasionally stick an old candy thermometer in my fish grease to see the temperature. About 350 to 375 is recommended for fish. I like just a little less for the hushpuppies which I usually fry first as the oil is coming to this temp. It seemed like with this more scientific monitoring I was more consistent.  

I shot the BBQ grill the other day while cooking a local favorite, chicki-legs and noted the temp at 249 which is about prefect for BBQ. 

For you foodies I made a mustard/beer wash using non alcohol (warning Kris Rock trigger) Bud Zero (50 calories, 0 alcohol, 0 sugar, no hangover)  and then rolled in Zatarains Cornmeal. Probably start doing this all the time. I do have a box of what is called air fry fish meal which we won't experiment on any of you good people with but instead keep cooking with all the health benifts of old cheap cooking oil when serving the masses.      

After making sure we had enough fish we gave Darwin a bird watching boat tour and poked around looking for gators (no luck, probably have to wade the back water after all that rain) which he wanted to see. After dining we fixed him up with a pack of wild caught fresh fillets, some left over fried fish and  gave him a fishing rod. He said Cathy would have made a good pioneer woman and left us a paddle board to use in further outdoor adventures.

For the fishing log final count was 16 fish on slip corks. It was a real good day.