Brook Trout!

Date: June 2nd

Weather: 73 degrees and beautiful

Stream: Clear

Hatch: Yellowish mayflies, and some crazy ones I’ve never seen

Beer: The Dancing Man

Catch of the day

            Of course, the night I forget to bring my camera I catch a beautiful, rare jewel of a fish, the regal Brook Trout. My luck on the Kinnickinnic just doesn’t have any limits this season. I made another trek out and spent most of the time at my hot honey hole. I was just slaying the trout and on one I hooked I noticed a slightly different pattern on its body. Brook trout are rare on the Lower Kinnie where I fish and I was shocked to reel it in. It fought so hard and made some really nice runs. When I got a hold of it in my hand I thought I had died and gone to heaven, it was so unexpected and I didn’t have a camera to snap a picture. That was the first time I’ve caught a brookie on the Kinnie. I have caught them on the Willow, Poplar and a secret Boundary Waters lake I can never reveal. 

Brookie from secret BWCA lake

            Here is an old picture I have and see just how beautiful brookies are, much more than a brown trout. With that brookie, I have caught every species of Midwest stream trout this year except for the elusive lake trout up north. I missed one on Magnetic Lake once and I’ve regretted it ever since.

            But what’s the fun in catching trout if you don’t keep a few to eat? I never enjoy killing such a beautiful fish but sometimes if you want to eat meat you should be willing to do the dirty work. This recipe is taken from the Norwegian chef Andreas Viestad. It’s basically smoked trout with a spinach soup. I smoked my trout over a pot of apple wood chips in the backyard. The spinach soup was simply spinach cooked in cream for a couple minutes and then blended. I added a scoop of yogurt for some extra tang. It was a splendid lunch appetizer. I could sell that for 25 bucks a place in uptown. 

Homemade smoker

Finished

Lunch