This is topic Pretty good morning. in forum Member forum at The New Huntmastersbbs!.
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Posted by Kokopelli (Member # 633) on February 01, 2022, 12:52 PM:
Did some shooting (arrows) off of the 100 yard line just for the heck of it and grouped pretty well.
Then went to the local pond and caught a limit of trout.
The odd thing was that I saw a Common Coot actually eating a dead trout near shore. I brought it to the attention of a couple birdwatching and they both said that they had never seen that before. The woman used her binoculars when I speculated that perhaps the trout was on a momo line and the Coot was tangled. She looked it over carefully and said, nope that Coot is eating that trout. Weird.
Then ............ in a high foot traffic area on the way to the parking lot, I found a pottery shard.
A heck of a day. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on February 02, 2022, 11:10 AM:
Well, that's an awesome days activity, for sure. I don't see much rarity in observing a coot eating a fish. Are you thinking they mainly eat aquatic weeds, or Purina Coot Chow?
What kind of trout? I have never cared for Rainbow, the amount of bones freaks me out! Too much work! The most tasty fish are what we had in Minnesota, starting with Walleye and Northern Pike, but the Sunfish (Blue Gill) were also very good. I never cared for any type of catfish or what we called Bullheads. Calico Bass are a lot better tasting than Big Mouth Bass. Really, the best tasting salt water fish is grilled Swordfish, if you can find it and after that, Halibut steak is excellent. I don't like Salmon of any type, but King Crab is my favorite over lobster. Clams and mussels gag me, and oysters, no thanks! The last prices I saw at Costco for King Crab was 40 bucks a pound! eek!
A decent steak beats seafood every time. A secret from my mother is basting chicken with mayonnaise while on the grill. Just try it, you'll see! If you want the best Tuna sandwich, get albacore and then put a layer of potato chips inside before you close it up. You will never eat another (toasted) tuna sandwich without Lays potato chips, damn that's good! BTW, a BLT is not complete without sliced avocado.
Good hunting. El Bee
Posted by Kokopelli (Member # 633) on February 02, 2022, 01:13 PM:
All I've ever seen Coots eat was slime off of cattails.
I'll give the Mayo on grilled chicken a try.
I love catfish; Bake 'em in a batter and about the time the batter's turning golden lay thin slice of Monterey Jack cheese on to melt.
Bass, ok but not so much. Yellow Perch or Bluegill any time.
All time great; Deep fried frog legs & Morel Mushrooms with a mug of Dandylion wine.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on February 02, 2022, 07:08 PM:
It's funny with the perch. They were widely sneered at when I was growing up in Minnesota. People say yellow perch, ours were yellow and green, dark vertical bars, and with reddish highlights, if that defines yellow perch, that's fine, I just know we called them "perch". A few got to be maybe 10-11 inches, or so; but average length was more like 6 or 7 inches and we routinely threw them back. But the few times we fried them, for lack of anything else, the were decent eating, tasted very much like the sunfish. That's another thing that everybody else was calling Blue Gill or Brim, we had a few blue gill and the yellow sunfish and one we called a pumpkinseed, which weren't as common but they seemed a little bigger. Out here we have the "red ear" and they are, way bigger than anything I ever caught in Minnesota. For that matter we have some crappie that are real bruisers, sometimes over 2 pounds. They talk about white and I guess black crappies, I don't know what we had but they weren't quite as good as a sunfish, but averages a little bigger; I never caught one even close to one pound. I never saw a trout in Minnesota, the most common long fish was the Northern Pike. I really don't think they have Muskies, but they had some in Wisconsin, right next door. I think we had smallmouth bass but until I came out here, we never used words like big mouth and small mouth. I was just a kid and I doubt I ever caught more than ten, total; just not real common. Nobody in Minnesota had any time for anything but walleye pike, but it was kind of specialized fishing, at night. Just rarely caught one trolling, and I never did. That's the main game, trolling for Northerns. We might have had a few Pickerel, in the northern creeks but it's hard to tell a small northern from a pickerel. So that just about wraps it up on northern Minnesota fishing.
Good hunting. El Bee
[ February 02, 2022, 07:09 PM: Message edited by: Leonard ]
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