You Can Eat Whitefish!

[Al Agnew]

The Yellowstone River has about a bazillion whitefish. Most of the trout fishermen hate them. I understand why...you get a take on a nymph, dry fly, even occasionally a streamer, that for a bit you're sure is a nice trout, but then it turns out to be a whitie. It's disappointing. But on the other hand, the whitefish can keep you entertained on slow trout fishing days. And you have plenty of slow trout fishing days on a river as heavily pressured as the Yellowstone. If you're nymph fishing, you can usually expect to catch 2 to 3 times as many whitefish as trout. If you use a Prince Nymph, you might figure on an even bigger ratio; those whities REALLY love Princes.

The limit on the things if you want to keep them is something like 20 or 30, so one could really make some meals out of whitefish around here. But, the first time I tried to eat them, my brother in law and I caught a half dozen, filleted them, and fried them in cornmeal as we'd do crappie or bass. They were almost inedible, with a very strong, fishy--muddy taste. I love fresh fried fish, but even I couldn't eat these things. On top of that, the fillets still had a lot of bones.

Now, there's an artist who lives in Livingston, Parks Reece. If you've been in the Rib and Chop restaurant in town, you'll see his paintings hung all over the place. Many of them have trout fishing theme, and they are wryly humorous. An example would be one of his paintings which depicts a trout underwater, looking up at the surface, where there are about a hundred flies floating, titled "Summer on the Yellowstone". I've met Parks on the river a couple of times, and the first time he asked me if I'd been catching any whitefish. I told him I had. The next time, he asked the same thing. Curious, I asked him if he fished for them.

"Yep, that's all I usually fish for. I love to eat them."

As it turns out, he usually smokes them. Okay, maybe they'd be good smoked. But I don't have a smoker.

So the other day, I got on the internet to see if I could find anything about recipes for them, or anything else about preparing them and eating them.

Several sources said that they were either good to eat or delicious, but didn't elaborate on how to fix them. Of course, those sources also said they were great fighters. Now, they do fight, but you know within a couple of seconds after hooking one that it's not a trout, and although they don't exactly give up, they slow down enough that you can get them in pretty quickly. They don't jump, don't make long runs, just tug and roll. So I had to question those sources.

I found recipes for canning them, which would take care of the bones, anyway. I found one recipe where somebody poached them first and then grilled them. That seemed like a lot of trouble. But finally, I found a source which showed a video on how to fillet them to get the bones out, and then how to prepare them for cooking. Aha!

You fillet them like you normally would any fish, both then he showed exactly where the extra bones are. Now, if you've filleted bass, you probably know that there's the backbone, the rib cage, and then a row of small bones that sticks straight out to the side from the backbone right along the rib cage, and that's all except for the bones attached to the fins, which you get rid of by filleting anyway. As long as you remove those other little bones, which I do by cutting a thin slit out of the fillet that includes them, you've got a boneless fillet. With whitefish, those bones aren't even there, but there is a different row of little bones that are above the rib cage, that seem to correspond to the same little bones in bass, but are just situated higher in the fillet and are also slated upwards instead of sticking straight out. So all you do is cut them out in a similar little slit.

Okay, got that. The other thing about whitefish is that they have a layer of very dark red meat running down the sides just under the skin. This is the source of that strong, muddy, fishy taste. This guy showed that you can scrape some of that red meat off, but you won't get all of it. So what he recommended, and what I think is very important, is that as soon as you get the fish cleaned, you stick the fillets in cold water with a teaspoonful or two of lemon juice.

So today, I had to try it. I'd painted all day, working on a painting that I have to get finished by the first of next week, and when I came in at 5 PM, Mary asked me if I wanted to go down to the river and sit on the little gravel bar at the edge of the yard and read a book for a while, since it was a nice, warm, sunny afternoon. I said sure, but I had a plan other than reading.

The little channel right next to the gravel bar is a side channel that just opened up after last spring's high water. It's now flowing about 100 cfs, and it comes out of a fast little riffle into a nice run about 4-5 feet deep right there at the gravel bar. That run is full of whitefish. So my plan was to just take the fly rod, no waders, and see if I could catch a few whitefish to try my new found knowledge on. I tied on a single Prince Nymph, and began to drift it through the run.

But first, I noticed that there were a few caddis flying around, which got me a bit excited. The Mother's Day caddis hatch is getting ready to pop! I almost went back up to get the waders, but there weren't many flies, and not a lot of obviously rising fish, so I stuck with the whitefish plan.

The first four fish I hooked, as luck would have it, were trout. Dang, now I'm being disappointed catching trout! Well, the third of the four was a good 16 inch rainbow that jumped once and got off, and the fourth one was another 16 incher that jumped all over the place before I got it in, so I wasn't TOO disappointed. Then I found the whitefish, and caught three nice ones in short order. Three's enough, I thought. I'd tossed them into an isolated little puddle so they'd stay alive, and I filleted them quickly right there.

.

I carried them up to the house and figured out how to skim off some of the red meat and get that row of bones out. Then I put them in a container with the cold water and lemon juice, and put them in the fridge so soak. Mary and I went for a walk, and when we got back, I got them out, dipped them in a beaten egg thinned with water, dredged them in cornmeal, and fried them.

And believe it or not, they were quite good. Not quite as good as crappie, but good enough that they were soon gone. I'm excited. A fine source of fish right outside the door!

[ozark trout fisher]

Whitefish are fine to eat....I admit that I don't have the most sensitive taste buds (I can eat nearly anything after I've been fishing all day) but they've always tasted just fine to me. When you get down to it they're very closely related to trout. I practically subsisted on the things during a summer spent in Montana largely to avoid keeping trout. They're plentiful enough on most trout streams out west that you don't have to worry in the least about eating your share of them. The perfect combination really.

So many people hate whitefish. Never understood that. Just as much a part of those rivers as cutthroat trout. I think they're a lot of fun.

[Quillback]

There's a popular fishery for them in the Yakima river in Washington state in the late winter, they stack up in the deep holes and can be easily caught, I never targeted them, but always thought about it. Most folks in the PNW smoke them, supposed to be tasty.

[West Fork Jason]

quite fond of 'em smoked!

[mic]

Stupid question Al, why not just cut out the bad section?

[kjackson]

If I had a ready source of whitefish, I'd buy a Little Chief smoker. They are good smoked--not as good as kokanee, but good.

[Quillback]

Ahhh, the Little Chief, smoked a lot of salmon and steelhead in one of those, man that was good stuff! You can't beat warm, right out of the smoker, salmon. Take a piece of that snack sized rye bread, spread some mayo on it, add some smoked salmon, top it off with some chopped red onion and a couple of capers - good eats!

[Wayne SW/MO]

We put a little smoke on them and then canned them, very tasty. We used to get into a lot of them at times on the Deschutes in OR. I believe they are in the char family, if I remember right.

I don't know about Montana, but they were real fond of the carrot fly in OR.

[EddieRay]

So what he recommended, and what I think is very important, is that as soon as you get the fish cleaned, you stick the fillets in cold water with a teaspoonful or two of lemon juice.

I wonder if soaking them in milk for an hour would accomplish the same thing. I soak all of my fillets in milk for an hour in the refrigerator and it removes any fishy taste. I'm not sure if it would work with Whitefish or not, considering the red meat under the skin that you are talking about.

[DaddyO]

Seems like it would be like most fish that have red meat. Just cut it out, as Al mentioned. I, also, like to soak the filets in milk. mmmmm.. tasty.