My first fish fight!!

We went out to a friend for tea, so took the rods with us, in case we decided to throw a line on the way home. ( He wants to know when to expect to catch eel in the river mouth? Does anyone know what time of year they come in?)

I was worried about the weather as I had a down duvet/doona on the line outside, so we came back to the west side of the island to keep an eye on it, but it looked okay to fish for a bit.

So we went to some rocks close to Castle Rock, which is featured on every tourist pic of the island, and cast out with some squid bait. Dave caught a Wrasse, and I thought 'this is great the cats will be happy'. And then something took my bait and pulled. It fought, it went to my right around some rocks, and I thought that would be the end, but it came in close below me and then off again round to the left. By then I had worked out that it wasn't a Wrasse, as they just pull a bit, but had no idea what I was fighting.

After what must have been 5 mins, but felt like 15, Dave managed to scoop it into the net, and it was an Australian Salmon, 705g after gutting, but it looks really good. Especially as I did not lose it while it was fighting.

It is the first real fish fight I have had since we got here, so it was wonderful to actually land the fish, with Dave's help of course, and I am looking forward to tasting it tonight.

Bad news for the mick

I'm growing steadily more used to the pleasant cadences of Tassie Australian. It's a bit slower-spoken than Sydney Australian, and easier to understand. Mind you, there are still a few mysteries. How come you fish for brim (bream) but do not barrack for a tim, or run out of stim? And I hear Mick is mighty disappointed he's not going to inherit the Earth even if there are eels in the crick (creek). Well, I suppose English never has been logical, even before it emigrated out here.

A report back on Australian Salmon. Has anyone considered changing its name? I mean if you're going to brand a fish with country's name, make sure it's good eating. Ok it's not terrible, and I think it will make very good roll-mops, and maybe just pickled fish. I think it's what might be called a very fishy fish, without a lot of other flavour. Slightly soft in texture, it was Okay grilled. I smoked some, but oversmoked it a bit (having trouble with the little gas burner(running out of gas)). Hot smoking is a bit of a bastard to get perfect. Cold smoking - always looked on as the black art and mystery, is actually relatively easy. You just have to get the fish/meat salted right and keep the smoke cold. Do that and you're home and well, smoked, rather than dry. I flaked it into cooked barley, caramelised onions, fresh snow peas, spinach (just in case there is any more threshhold carrying) and chopped olives (using up the bought ones). It was edible, but I was wise to choose a strong flavour like barley. Anyway, I have 2 more IIRC to experiment with. It's easy to de-bone and should make good fish-cakes.

The olives continue to have their water changed. It's slightly purple-tinged.

The fruits of someone else's labours

I've always had a big thing about catching my own fish, but as a learning curve this present from Jeremy (a local commercial seine netter and a good bloke who I met on the self-sufficiency community garden thing) does show me how it could be done.



From left to right that's mullet (mulgil cephalis, I think), garfish (Hyporhamphus melanochir) (2) 3 More mullet, Australian Salmon (Arripis trutta) (2) and yellowtail (Seriola lalandi (3) The Austalian Salmon and Yellowtail weigh about a kilogram each, in the round. You can see the freshness of these - barely a couple of hours out of the water. The eyes are bright and the gills were still deep, dark red.

On the board is a 'vlekked' mullet (gutted through the back to leave the belly intact for barbeque). Most of the islanders regard mullet and salmon barely fit for crayfish pot bait. Mind you they do like a bit of variety with their fish. They eat flathead, fried AND grilled. And if they feel like a change, there is flathead. As Mike (the local dive-master who was helping John put the new wood-burning heater in who is one of the most knowledgable people about fish and marine matters on the island) said there is also flake. And flathead. Trust me, the flathead is GOOD, and extremely so, but if, like us, you're eating seafood 28 days a month, variety is also good. And the tastes are different. Maybe not as good as flathead :-), but I hot-smoked a fillet of mullet then and there, and Mike did pronouce it edible (if not as good as flathead). John-boy would have eaten the lot and the table-top too if he hadn't been minding his manners. He said I done good with that. Much better than smoked mutton-bird!

Formalin

Did you know formalin damages DNA? The useful stuff you learn on this site! Barbs went to try and scrounge 2 millitres of 97% alcohol from the hospital today to preserve some ant specimens for my entomologist friend back in SA. Alas - semi-undertandably - they can't do that. But they did let us have a few drops of formalin. Which we can't use because it does the DNA in. Ah well. Some idiot would probably try and drink the 97% (even though it is full of methanols.) Anyway got to get the word count up, as I am skiving tomorrow - we got an invitation to go salmon fishing with one of the locals, and as Australian salmon are likely to be one of our major food sources, and my only attempt at catching them ended in a fat zero and being broken up, I'm keen to learn.

Australia day

James came home from sea with a good feed of flathead, some abalone and serious dose of flaming scarlet skin and very wide grin.
We ate flathead and pronounced it excellent - firm, succulent, and with a lovely flavor. I simply shallow fried it in rice bran oil, with a flour and egg batter. I also - with trepidation, cooked whole greenlip abalone the way John had told us to. Now I am used to slicing abalone blotting-paper thin, and then beating it with a steak mallet until lacy and see-through. It's still slightly tough - a minor detail for the flavour of it. It's then very very briefly fried. You can also cut it in chunks and cook in a pressure cooker for quite some time - the end result is tender, but much of the flavour is sacrificed. The idea of briefly cooking a whole crumbed abalone had me living in fear of turning something precious and delicious into large chunks of very long lasting old car-tyre imitations. But -that waas local advice -and I am here to learn - so I ventured bravely into culinary sacrilege. It worked and the abalone steak wasn't tough. Not as tasty as the South African kind, IMO - still delicious. And RICH.

Today was Australia day, our first - and memorable - we went to a beach barbie up at Killiekrankie a Lions function. We sat in the shade of the she-oaks looking out at the kids (including James) playing beach cricket. Behind them two little Catamarans sailed out in the bay toward Stacky's Bite.It was idyllic, friendly - with us meeting a lot more people who already know about us:-) - getting some inside information on a lot of the ups and downside of the Island. James and I had done a dive circuit of the little island just offshore and had seen an array of fish- some of which I now have to look up, and seen a lot of Abalone -- crays, less so, sadly - the only ones were in the holding fykes in the channel. I'm still hoping to dive from the shore for them, without aqualungs. We'll see.

Then we drove the final few km to North East river, and tried for Australian Salmon for few minutes... ineptly. I got myself broken up - lost most of my line - and James had the tail of his plastic bitten off. Learning curve.

So this evening I've cooked some clams, bacon, broccoli and pasta in a creamy sauce. It calls for bit of white wine and some flatleaf-parsley. We'll work on it.