Rockfish Galore

Last night’s dinner was absolutely scrumptious. We even added hush puppies to the list of dishes after the fish had been fried. We just mixed in a little baking powder to the cornmeal mixture used to coat the fish, and dropped dollops into the skillet. Oh so crunchy on the outside. A perfect addition to the fried fish, which was unbelievably tender and delicate due to its freshness. I mean, it doesn’t get much better than that! (though sometimes, we’ll come home from fishing and I’ll get started on filleting while the fish are still twitching and my Dad will fry the first fillets up in the house—now that is pure mmmmmmmmhhhmmm. Words just don’t cut it.) And the potatoes, once you have those potatoes you’ll never go back. You cut up Yukon gold potatoes and parboil them for 5 minutes, then toss them in duck fat, salt and pepper and roast them in at 400 degrees, flipping them when one side gets its reddish brown crisp. God they are good.

{Potatoes Fried in Duck Fat}

{Dinner}

This morning we went fishing again. It was even mistier and foggier than yesterday, but just as calm and glassy. We tried a spot or two, but the fish weren’t biting very well, so we went further up north. There, we had a rockfish heyday. Cries of “fish on!” came from left and right, as well as front and back. I was casting a little rubber fish today, and I caught lots of nice sized blacks. I like casting out, and sitting on the boat railing while the lure sinks, slowly reeling in until I feel the telltale little tug when I can add my own “fish on” to the mix. I like reeling them in and that accompanying feeling of hyper awareness of what I’m doing as well as everything in the space where I plan on landing my fish. I feel a little spike of anxiety lifting a big one over the railing because I’ve learned my lesson: never hit the railing. And I love it when the lure comes out of the fish’s mouth of its own accord on the boat floor, so I can do it all over again.

We quickly cleaned up, catching our limit of blacks before moving on to trying our luck at lings again. I didn’t catch one myself, but I did snag a decent cabazon that was exciting to pull up. My friends had a good ling day, which was fine by me because it doesn’t matter who catches ‘em, I still get to eat ‘em. Once again, we returned home pink and (perhaps even more than yesterday) happy.

{The (wilted) Cabazon}

it looked a lot different alive

The filleting took about an hour and a half, and we prepped a giant vermillion and a copper for barbequing for dinner by scaling and gutting them. Inside, I salt and peppered the outsides, and rubbed thyme and chunks of garlic in the bellies. The fish then went on pieces of aluminum foil with a dollop of olive oil on top of the barbeque. We have yet to eat them.