PLEASANT UNCERTAINTY

  I posted a note on Facebook early yesterday making a statement and a rhetorical question. “Coyote trapping season opens today. Am I surprised it rained more than  2 inches over the weekend?”

  That’s just one of the challenges of trapping for Midwestern coyotes. Couple that with unharvested fields, harvested fields the farmer feels the need to disk or plow in the fall and fields freshly planted with winter wheat and access to my normal trapping locations is always a factor.
 
  Most of the other challenges are more Mother Nature oriented. Wind and wind direction certainly has an affect. Even a drizzle of rain that doesn’t turn fields into lakes can ruin the best-made set. 
     Then there’s the quirks of trapping a very intelligent and cautious animal. Coyotes are strong. The gear and technique used have to be top notch or the animal will find the weakness and exploit it.

  This morning I’ll be heading out towards what I’ve coined, “the pleasant uncertainty.” I first used it in conjunction with going fishing. The pleasant uncertainty exists until you make the first cast or get the first strike.

So what will I find when I get out on my trap line today?  I’m uncertain. But I’m looking forward to it.  

BOILED PEANUTS?

On the way to our morning fishing trip, my fishing partner and I passed a country store advertising “BOILED PEANUTS.” That got me thinking.

Were it not so common, easy to find and even easier to use, peanut butter would rank above French truffles and Russian caviar as one of the world’s most flavorful food. Luckily, it’s something us commoners can afford and enjoy.

I love peanuts other ways, as well. Peanuts in the shell were a fall staple at the hunter check-in station where I used to work. A jar of dry roasted Planters is as good a snack as I can imagine. But boiled?  I couldn’t imagine. Neither could Bill so we vowed we’d stop at Whisker’s Country Corner on the way back from fishing to investigate.

What we found was the an eclectic mix of tourist stop, local corner store, antique boutique and just a fun place to be. You could tell it wasn’t built. It evolved. It probably started as a roadside stand selling fresh produce and perhaps boiled peanuts. Then it just grew and took over the sturdy but somewhat ramshackle buildings, nearby. You can even get a haircut there! But this is a story about peanuts.

Store owner and chief peanut “boiler,” Peggy Stevenson didn’t share the exact recipe, but it involved raw peanuts in-the-shell, plenty of water a pinch or two of salt and, no doubt, a few secret herbs. Put it in a large roasting pan and let it stew for several hours - or all day, I suppose.

“Some people eat shell and all,” said Peggy. “They cook, but are stringy like celery. Most people peel off the shell, just as you would with roasted peanuts.”

Peggy dispenses over 4 gallons of
boiled peanuts each day!

So with those instructions, Bill and I set off with our first sampling of this southern snack.

How were they?  I agree with most people. Peel off the shell. I didn’t on the first one I sampled and it was indeed stringy. More than stringy, actually. Don’t do it. The rest I peeled. I say “peeled” because the process is a bit harder than cracking open a roasted peanut - more like peeling a cooked shrimp.


Inside, the peanuts were done perfectly. But no peanut flavor! Their texture was more that of a navy or lima bean cooked “al dente.” (Peanuts are a legume.) The flavor was more bean-like than anything. If you like navy beans,  ham’n beans, black eyed peas and the like, you could easily become a boiled peanut fan. I do and I now am a fan. Unfortunately, until I get back to the Ozarks, I’ll have to make do with peanut butter.

POISON MUSHROOMS

These "parasol" looking mushrooms are
grand looking, but poisonous. 

A week or so ago some mushrooms started sprouting in my yard. Previously, the very delicious Shaggy Mane, also known as Inky Cap mushroom, has grown in my yard and though never very numerous, we've eagerly gathered our small harvest. Inky Caps are one of the fool-proof four of edible wild mushrooms, making them hard to mistake for any other variety.

At first, I thought these were Shaggy Manes, but instead of dissolving into a gooey mess in a few hours, these kept on growing. When I returned home after a multi-day road trip, they’d gotten huge.

They were magnificent! Are they edible? There was more than enough for a meal. So I Googled!

My first guess was they were parasol mushrooms and the first few pictures I saw made me believe I was correct and headed for a great mushroom dinner. But one of the authors who created one of the mushroom ID sites I visited warned there were a couple of close look-a-likes so be careful.

Shaggy Manes are good to eat
and common in my yard. 

One of them was called the  Chlorophyllum molybdites, more commonly, the Green Gilled Parasol. It’s not deadly, but will make most people violently ill, apparently from both ends. In the write-up, the author noted the green-gilled version was the most common cause of mushroom poisoning in the United States.

That was enough for me to check and recheck, before venturing farther down this culinary track. One of the specimens I picked showed a bit of mint green tinge to it’s gills. The definitive test is to put the cap on a white paper and wait an hour or more. If it sheds spores that are green, it’s proof positive you don’t want to eat it.

Green they were!  Into the dumper they went. We had homemade fries with our burgers for dinner.

HUMMER-TIME

Summer time is “hummer-time” at my house.  Hummingbirds, that is. Those scrappy little moth-sized birds are one my favorite things about summer.

We don’t get lots of hummers here.  Most years just a couple of pairs take up residency in our vicinity. A good year is when we host 3 couplets of the tiny birds. That is until early August.

That’s when the kids join mom and dad sucking free sweets from my plastic flowers. Since hummers only raise 2 babies each year, once the juvies join the party, the flock doubles. Maybe there are some cousins, uncles or aunts showing up as well. Maybe just having twice as many makes it seem as though the feeder is 10 times as busy.

Hot weather certainly boosts their metabolism and causes them to drink more. I love it.

A WELL-STORIED FISH

I’m trying not to start off on a morbid note, but one of the realities of life is that everything is destined to die. Humans spend millions to fight off death. Animals instinctively know how to avoid being killed. Even plants have defense mechanisms that kick into gear under adverse growing conditions. But in the end, it’s the end.

There's a story to every caught fish. 

Some things die hard. Ever had a weed in your garden that just kept resprouting? Some things seem to tempt their fate daily. Human daredevils can get rich or famous (or dead) from their exploits.

Some things just seem bent on destruction.

I encountered a steelhead yesterday that filled that bill to a T and gave a couple of fishermen some thrills along the way. One could argue it was the fish’s fate. Others might call it destiny.

After all, the reason one of Indiana’s fish hatcheries made the effort to capture it’s parents, care for them until the eggs were ripe and fertile, then nurtured the hatchling from fry to fingerling to big enough to stock in Lake Michigan was with the hope some fisherman would eventually hook up with it.

The last fish my group of anglers hooked Saturday morning came with a surprise. I extended the net and scooped the struggling fish out of the lake, ending the tussle. As I lifted the fish into the boat, I noticed a strand of monofilament line in the net along with the fish.

“Odd,” thinks me. I try to keep stray strands of mono picked up, and hoped one of my lures wasn’t attached to (or detached from) the extra fishing line.  As I removed the lure that had caught the steelhead from the fish, some of the wayward line was tangled in the treble at the end of the spoon.

“Doubly odd,” thinks me. I noticed the line wasn’t my line at all. Too thin. Probably 4 or 6 pound test. My first postulation was that the hook had snagged onto a length of discarded line, however, I’d think more than a few inches of it would have disturbed the action of the lure pulling through the water and the fish wouldn’t have bitten it.

Then it dawned on me to look again inside the mouth of the fish. Sure enough! Embedded inside was a bright red perch-sized hook.

The extra hook in this fish suggests it was part of
someone else's fish story from an earlier day. 

Some perch fishermen in the recent past went home with a “fish story” that went something like, “I felt a tap and set the hook and instantly knew it wasn’t a perch.”  Or perhaps, “The rod pulled down like I’d hooked a nuclear submarine....” The end of what ever story he told had the same end. “The line broke.”


So this steelhead, destined from birth to die and nurtured from it’s conception to be caught by a happy angler, became a “well-storied” fish.  When it bit the perch fisherman’s minnow, it gave him or her a story to tell and a lasting memory. When it bit the spoon trolling behind my boat it gave a tale to the angler who fought and won the battle. In addition, it gave me a story to tell to you, as well. All fish should meet such a well-storied end.

CAPTAIN'S HOLIDAY



My Lake Ontario coho.

So what does a fishing guide do when he doesn’t have to go fishing for a few days? He goes fishing!

At least that’s what I do and it’s not so much that I go fish for panfish, since I so often fish for Great Lakes salmon and trout. Nothing against panfish, or walleye, or bass or most any other kind of fish.

I love Great Lakes salmon and trout and I love to fish for them. So when I showed up in Niagara Falls for the annual Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writer’s "Cast and Blast" and got the chance to hop on Capt. Bob Cinelli’s boat for a morning of Lake Ontario salmon fishing, I went.


Fellow AGLOWers, Berdette Zastrow and P.J. Perea came along and plenty of fish showed up for the morning fun, as well.

Did I learn anything? Probably.

Did I care much? Not really.

Capt. Bob helps Berdette pose her first salmon.

I just enjoyed not being in charge. Let Capt. Bob and mate Roy handle setting the lines, net the fish, swab the deck and all the other details. I took my turn at the rail. Caught a couple, whiffed on one, tossed back a little one and caught some nice fish.

Captain’s holiday! Tomorrow is more salmon and then some smallmouth in the afternoon. Wednesday is, well, who cares? I’m going fishing.

PINCHER MEAT

I’m a seafood lover. When I have a choice of fish, fowl, red meat, veggies or even ice cream and cookies, I’ll be ordering up something that lived in the water. That goes double when I head on one of my adventure trips to fish in far away places.

Dining companions showing fine form with a box of crab claws!

Head to Iowa, plan on eating beef or pork. Head to Arkansas, order up some Tyson chicken. It’s called “eating local.” Greenies tout the practice because it makes sense, environmentally. I tout it because fresh food tastes better than old or frozen food.



So how, with all my trips to the East Coast, Florida and the Gulf Coast, how did I ever miss out on “crab claws.”  I’ve had meat from lobster claws and crabs like stone crabs with huge pinchers plenty of times, but always in conjunction with a whole lobster or a plate full of whole crabs. When a plate full of deep-fried blue crab claws showed up as an appetizer at “Flippers,” the host restaurant our first night in Orange Beach on a recent trip.

The concept is simple. The last leg segment which contains the powerful muscles that operate the crab’s pincher claws is removed and peeled of its shell. The resulting chunk is breaded, quickly deep fried in a spicy batter and served with a variety of dipping sauces.

Eating them is equally simple. Grasp by the pincher, bite gingerly until you get to the plastic-like tendon in the middle of the detached crab-limb, then pull the crab leg from your mouth sliding the meat off in your mouth. Wonderful!

An alternate preparation showed up on the appetizer platter the next night at King Neptune’s. These claws were sauteed, then dusted liberally with cajun spices. Equally wonderful.

I’m going to keep an eye out for crab claws on menus from now on. Maybe I’ve just overlooked them. If I don’t find any, I’ll just schedule another trip to Orange Beach. They are a staple, there!