I was up for an adventure so me and a buddy ran up to flaming gorge to try for some burbot. Neither one of us had ever been there before or knew what we were doing but we ended up catching about 25 burbot and 7 lake trout. We just stopped at the first rocky point we found, fished from about 1600 to 1200 the next day. THey came into about 50 to 60 feet of water and the bite was good from about 1/2 an hour after dark to about midnight then it just stopped. Our biggest was about 5 lbs, we caught about 10 in the 4 to 5 range the rest were small. it was an adventure and the burbot are tasty, but the macs are still not that good. I need to find a way to cook those so they are edible any suggestions.
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i use to say you could smoke any fish and have them taste good but the last laker i kept i had a guy try to smoke it. he still complains about how that oily fish ruined his smoker he actualy went out and bought a new one.
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i have heard that their skin needs to be removed or your just wasting your time. I personally haven't tried yet.
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awsome job man after the bite slow's move shallower.... as far as smokin mac's filet them then cut them in to small strip's and soak them in you brine then smoke away i can smoke them and koke and the mac will be gone before the koke it is like candy if cut in to the strip's it help's the oil's leave the meat and make's a awsome snack but i never smoke eny over about 30''......never smoke a mac filet whole or it will be a ball of oil......I use a brine called hillbilly jerky seasoning made by con yeager spice company out of PA and it is awsome soak chunk's for at least 24 hr's then get smokin with apple or cherry wood about half way throw add a small amount of brown suger for the candy coating... if you can smoke a steelhead and make it ok you should have no problem doing a small laker.......nice job again . Ash..
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i would imagine if you hard smoked them they would be ok also. just use plenty of salt to get the oil out
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ok what is hard smoke?
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this is what i consider a hard smoke. first i take the filet and add salt and pepper, and a bit of brown sugar. how much i realy dont know i just do it to the size of the fish. but i do enough pepper that it is almost black and enough salt that no part of the fish doesnt have salt on it. then put it in the fridge on a cookie sheet or something. now about every 3 or 4 hours you want to take the fish and pour the water off. see the salt drains the moisture from the fish. add more salt if you can see it needs it. i do this 3 or even 4 days so the fish is almost dried out then rinse the brine off and reseason however you like. then put it in your smoker with as low heat as you can just enough to make "smoke" the smoke seals the fish. i call it fish jerky and lasts what seems like forever. with a bagel and cream cheese its to die for.
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I have not tried to smoke a mak yet but i just finished a smoker full of trout. A lot of people say that maks are there fav but I guess maybe the have never had a good fish.
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Thats great!!! I have been wanting to do that all winter but I haven't had the guts to drive that far and go for it without someone who knows where they are. I keep hearing rocky points with glow tubes and sucker meat.
I just need to get out and go for it. Are they spawning yet?
Windriver
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It was fun but we went at it totally blind, bought a selection of glow jigs here bought a license at buckboard marina a little shop about half way on the west side of the lake and literally stopped at set up shop at the first rocky point next to deep water that we found. We liked the 5" glow curly tails the best (the fish liked them too) and used crawfish smelly jelly or cod liver oil with sucker meat. I did not notice anything that looked like roe in them but what I read about them it is time. What I did see in them though was amazing, every fish over 3 lbs had a 8 to 14" fish in them along with a pile of crawdads, its amazing that they would even think of biting anything. Fishly says we should have moved shallower when they slowed up but we started driving at 0500 and the cot was sounding really nice.
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