Catch 'em, fillet 'em, bag 'em, eat 'em!

(I found this in the "Edit & Publish" list - apparently, the plan was to go back to it at a later date, finish it, and post it. Now so much time has passed that I don't know what happened next, so I'll just go ahead and post this as is. I'd imagine the next thing we did was get the grill going...!)


This evening the owners had a fish fry on their deck. The reason for the fry was that their son-in-law had gone fishing night before last and caught nearly 1,000 pounds of fish, most of which he had no need for. He brought them over here yesterday, and next thing I know, both Ians and I are at the fish cleaning station as part of the all volunteer fish cleaning and packaging team. At first I turned my nose up at the thought of filleting them, so said I'd do the bagging. (Later, I kind of wished I'd learned to fillet, except for the fact that once Ian knew I could do it, his days of cleaning and filleting would be over. Anyway, Glenn, the fisherman, had a huge box of zip-lock baggies and he told me to put about 2 pounds in each bag. Then he started emptying the containers on his truck. Rougheye came out by the dozens. Huge rougheyes - over 300 pounds. The two Ians, the two housekeepers, Glenn, and Carroll (the patriarch) drew their knives, put on their Bennihanna (is that right??) faces, and dug into the fish. Mallory, one of the housekeepers, instructed little Ian on how to make a horizontal cut at one end of the fillet, hold the fillet at that end with one hand, while digging the knife down to the skin, then pushing the knife along the skin while pulling the meat away. He did pretty good, but obviously it takes practice. We were proud of him for at least trying and not turning his nose up at it. While they all filleted and skinned the fish, washed them and put them in a stainless steel bowl, I bagged the fillets. When we finished the rougheye, Glenn poured out hundreds of pounds of halibut. The assembly line made short work of them, and then the salmon came out. I've never seen such a bright orange salmon, and Glenn said it's the best there is. When I asked if I could buy a bag from him, he said I could take a bag of each of the fish for free for the help! Man, I didn't argue with him on that!