(I'm the guy on the right; the guy on the left was the motive force behind the outing; the upper rack are the salmon with the exception of the lake trout that is second from the right and was estimated at 8 lb)
The fish were filleted dockside and we grilled a fillet of the bigger salmon that night on a cedarwood plank to feed 4 adults and 3 boys. The next night I pan fried two of the lake trout fillets from the smaller fish. Both were amazingly good, reinforcing how important freshness of fish is (even two days on ice later, they weren't at all "fishy"). One down side, though, is the PCB and mercury levels present in these fish, making their consumption an infrequent event, especially for young children. The larger lake trout is actually the most problematic of all because it is an older fish than the rest, so has had more time to accumulate toxins in its fatty tissues. While the lake trout are native, the salmon are an introduced species to help combat the invasive alewife (shad), which had snuck into the lake from bilge water of cargo ships. One of the bigger salmon had a half dozen alewives in its belly, testament to how well they're combating the menace.
As a long time angler, I have to say that this experience was as divorced from my idea of fishing as stock car racing is from my morning commute. The crew of 2 set the lines, watched lines and handed us poles only after a strike. Our job was simply to reel in fish, an activity that took up to 15 minutes for the bigger salmon and big lake trout, at which time they'd net the beast, unhook it and stow it in their boat's fish locker. This experience was all about adrenaline and had little contemplation or intellect to it. Still, it was an interesting introduction to such activities.
Mark Lipton
