Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Pan Fried Longnose Dace....

We did it!
We ate another minnow without any ill side effects, in fact as always we were shocked at how yummy minnows are...



 As fans know we caught this longnose dace in a little brook in Rochester and as our quest rules dictate we had to eat it. This is perhaps the easiest way to cook a small fish.
Gut the fish and leave the head on. Rinse it off. Now the hard part is done. Heat a skillet and melt a lot of butter in it.


Yeah we forgot a spatula so we used our hemostats to turn the fish

Once the butter is all melty and hot, drop the fish in. Now season it with salt and pepper. Cook until it's crispy looking and serve hot. Fast easy and delicious.


 We always eat the whole minnow, head and all. So flip a coin with your friend if they get the head, then they get to eat the head! Dave had the luck of the coin on this day so he got the delicacy... haha


Happy Micro-Fish-Eating!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Doin the Dace Dance with Fish Number 41 the Longnose Dace!

Using some insider information we got a lead on the Longnose Dace in a tiny brook in Rochester.

There was a little bridge with some very slow water under it, we thought there was no way a dace would live in that warm slow spot, so we hiked downstream a hundred feet and saw some faster water.


 The biggest problem (we thought) was it was only 2-3 inches deep. Would a fish live in such shallow water?

We tied on a little hook, number 20 for those who like to know that sort of thing and floated a worm downstream under a bobber.

The bobber bounced a little funny next to a little 3inch riffle, so we took the bobber off and lowered the worm to that spot.

And we saw dozens of 2 inch fish attacking it like a school of sharks.

So we kept at it, fish after fish would attack the worm, but the hook was too big. A few minutes later a trophy size fish came in and gobbled the worm. (a tiny fly would have been great here)

We set the hook and lifted him out of the water. Success longnose dace!
Doing the dace dance!


We were more excited about this fish than any other in recent history! We high fived, did a little dance, took pictures and then put the fish on ice..
Check back later to see how we cooked and ate this fish!






As the euphoria wore off we set our sites on our next fish, stay tuned.....

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Eating Gefilte Fish!

Thought some of you would enjoy this video!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Chub Chasers! Fish Number 40 the Creek Chub!

Believe it or not, we've been after this minnow for over a year. We've spent hours fishing for creek chub relying on advice from other anglers, sampling data from NH Fish and Game and just plain luck. We figured we would catch this one easy. Every time we went to the Connecticut River we would spend time chasing creek chub because all accounts said this fish is extremely common in that watershed. We learned the hard way that accounts don't equal fish in the bucket.

Last Thursday we went to Beaver Brook in Alton where Fish and Game conducted electro-shock surveys in 2010 to study fish populations and the data showed chub were present. We fished a half-mile of the stream and landed dozens of fallfish, blacknose dace and brook trout. But we saw no sign of creek chub.
Saved this little snapper on the way


fallfish

brookie

Dave doing delicate work.

blacknose dace

Clay thinking about creekside sushi with dace, but then thought better of it.


Dave looking like a professional.

Clay landed what appeared to be a native brookie

Fishing like trolls under the bridge.

So we decided to table the creek chub hunt and go for longnose suckers instead. Again using data from Fish and Game we headed to the Ammonoosuc River in Twin Mountain. We spent two hours fishing there and caught lots of brookies, but saw no sign of longnose sucker. Even tried using dough balls to avoid the brookies, but the longnose snubbed us!
gratuitous nature shot


If you've never heard the mighty roar of a brookie you are missing out



After speaking to a local angler (I think his name was Travis) he suggested we find the deep pools below Upper Falls. So that's where we headed, but on the way there we passed a boggy looking area near the Mount Washington Hotel, and decided to drop a worm in the water.
It's creepy when Google Earth sees the fishing spot


road to the cog




You can see the Mount Washington Hotel from the spot.

A minute later we were on fish number 40, the creek chub Semotilus atromaculatus.  Luck WINS! 
We caught the fish on a #20 hook with a little piece of earthworm.
So proud!




That black smudge at the front base of the dorsal fin is a dead giveaway that this is a creek chub and not a fallfish



And with that, we were too excited to fish anymore....
This is the beauty of  The Quest;  a 4 inch creek chub is as exciting as a 15lb carp. (Maybe not quite, but it's still exciting enough for us to stop fishing.)


Stay tuned for the recipe!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Our Fish so Far!