So You Caught a Trout…

Look at this face:

I’m just slowly becoming the biggest Central Masshole on the planet despite living most of the year in central NY.

This guy caught a trout. Actually, so did this guy:

Ol’ Harry Potter lookin’ headass.

Oh whats that? You need that read back to you? Yeah that’s right I caught a trout (and so did Tommy but I’m the star of the show here). CAUGHT – A – TROUT. How else can I say it? I’ve made my claim as the best fisherman in Central Mass that also blogs about it and also has a dog named Bubz so the idea I had not caught a trout yet this summer (life) was preposterous (also just sad given how much I fish). But it’s all in the past. Anyways, here’s the story of me (and some other dufus) experience catching a trout.

It is hard to explain how much time a med student has on their hands during a pandemic and how much time a PhD student has on their hands… period no qualifiers. Me and Tommy (I know its Tommy and I but I’m the alpha) essentially dedicated all of it to catching a trout. And up till this past week we hadn’t caught one. We did catch a lot of these:

Grass pickerel, also the biggest fish Tommy has ever been seen with.

And a lot of these:

LUNKER Creek Chub… I didn’t eat this one.

But we hadn’t caught a trout. We knew trout preferred cold and clear water, so our strategy of fishing during the hottest months of the summer and in MA rivers/ponds which are literally just recycled cranberry bogs was foolproof. I honestly believe Gaia (Mother Earth) was conspiring against us for the infamous Slaughter of the Chub event earlier this summer (see So You Thought You Caught a Trout… for details). It reminds me of the time Voldemort couldn’t effectively use the Elder Wand because he hadn’t gained it on fair terms. But that timeline was always convoluted, I know its hard to wrap up something like Harry freaking Potter books but the Deathly Hallows was the biggest “deus ex machina” ending…. incarnate (only other Latin I know). I’m pretty positive this use of Latin makes sense. Not to brag, but I got C’s, D’s, and then was kindly told in Latin III that I can’t be in the class by the very sweet elderly teacher, so I think I know what I’m talking about.

If you actually got through that last paragraph and are still reading then I suggest you find a hobby (perhaps fishing?). Anyways, me and Tommy found ourselves at a local pond that allegedly had some trout in it, specifically rainbow trout. We were again employing our incredibly smart strategy of fishing when it is extremely hot out… but then something bit!

(In full disclosure we had made a pretty specific adjustment. Given trout in the summer essentially hibernate in cold and deep water, we used a .5 oz castmaster to get far and deep enough to find them. I promise this is the most actual fishing I’ll talk about in this fishing blog.)

Whatever was on my line was very strong and fairly far out. It bent my biggest rod quite a bit and I was trying to think of what it could be. A bass making that much strain would have to be huge but we weren’t really in bass waters. Maybe a catfish but that would be a total accident as fishing for catfish is totally different. And then Tommy said, “Maybe its a trout”. And guess what, it was a trout!

Notice the manic look in the eyes of a fisherman catching his Moby Dick.

It was a decent sized Rainbow Trout! Rainbow trout are mostly a stocked fish, it’s why we found them in a pond (wild trout are typically in rivers). I was surprised with how strong this fish really is, it might be half the size of the lunker bass I caught but it put up almost as tough of a fight (just slipping in a brag about that huge bass I caught that everyone remembers). Tommy’s reaction to me accomplishing his only dream in life was… well it was this:

I don’t know if that water is the pond or his tears.

Notice the turning of the body and refusal to make eye contact? This is a typical reaction of a fisherman who’s spirit has died (and girls I like). Tommy had to hide his intense sadness and rage so he refused to pose for this picture. I understood, its hard to think you’re as good at fishing as me and then have that false reality crash down around you. Thankfully it didn’t last too long, after I sat him down on my lap and told him how to catch a trout Tommy was able to reel in one all by himself:

Why are you strutting your leg like that? Are you a freaking English nobleman?

To keep the record straight, my trout was at least a quarter of an inch bigger (don’t make me say “Keep your mind out of the gutter!”). And that was that. It was kinda surreal, being hell bent on catching a particular fish (particularly during the worst possible time to catch fish) and failing so much made this such an awesome experience. The fact we caught it at a pond we’ve both known about and been around forever was very cool too.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you do not enjoy the idea of keeping and eating fish then I suggest you scroll all the way down to where it says “Cast and Pray”. I’ll throw in a bonus picture of Bubz for your trouble.

Naturally I was very curious to see what trout, which supposedly tastes good, tastes like. We decided to keep the (now dispatched) fish in a small cooler with ice in the fridge for a day to give us time to figure out how to cook them. And we also had the idea that we’d each find a different method and then taste test. I decided to fillet and grill my trout; Tommy decided to pan fry his (“Its what the restaurants do” said Tommy, who’s literally never ordered trout at a restaurant, unless you count Filet-O-Fish at McDonalds). Here is what my fillets looked like pre-cook:

Yeah I know I need to work on my fillet skills.

I was rather surprised the meat was pink like salmon, Tommy’s trout was mostly white meat. Apparently, for a variety of reasons, trout meat can either be orange, white, or pink. I decided to follow a simple recipe online. I put some salt, pepper, lemon juice, paprika, melted butter and a few pieces of garlic on top (in hindsight I wish I had crushed these a bit) and grilled the fillets on tin foil. Super simple. Tommy pan fried with just some seasoning, flour, and butter. Here are the results:

This is half of one fillet, so four pieces total.
I still don’t know why Tommy insisted restaurants leave head and tail on, or why it matters what “restaurants” do.

In general trout is delicious, definitely better than any other fish I’ve brought home so far (Crappie, Perch, Bluegill and yes Creek Chub (which actually might be the best of the lot, just bony! We caught some much bigger ones recently, I might revisit this fish.)). It reminded me of salmon mostly. The general review (among myself, Tommy, my brother and mom) is that my dish had more flavor (obviously). The advantage of Tommy’s dish is that you definitely are able to get more meat (filleting smaller fish can be costly), whereas with his fish you could just slide all the meat right off the bone very easily.

So that is my first trout. If I were to actually document how much work Tommy and I put in to catching one this would be an even longer blog. I should note Tommy is leaving for school, traveling via a soy boy Prius (it gets more than 20 mpg?!?!?! LOL) to the swamp he lives in down south. It was great to have a buddy equally as insane about catching fish to fish with, despite the fact I watched a man’s soul die every time we didn’t catch a trout. I can’t wait to text him pictures of the fish I catch half-drunk while he’s doing a 12 hour shift in a hospital learning how to help people this fall.

This has been a weird summer for everyone, I decided to try and make mine as positive as possible. And all I had to do was…

Cast and Pray,

Jon

Isn’t it great how Bubz loves me so much he watches to make sure I eat well and stay alive?

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