The Blue Frontosa

I went ice fishing for my first time. My friend and neighbor Bill Anderson was kind enough to show me the ropes. I’m sad to say we caught our limits in less time than it took to drive the one hour to fishlake. But, the sun was shining and the trout were beautiful. We were fishing for dinner, so Splake was the target fish. Bill says they are probably the best eating trout there is. When we got home Bill showed me this technique for filleting trout. His first rule, use a very sharp knife. Here is the step by step process of filleting a fish. No more bones.

Step 1: Make a cut from the top of the head to the belly, just behind the gills. Do this on both sides.

Step 2: Holding the fish head down. Cut from the anal fin to the gills. If you did it right the guts and head should all drop to the ground.

Step 3: Next we make a cut from the head to the tail-fin right along the back bone. Take a second to cut out the dorsal fin.

Step 4: Do the same on the belly, continuing down from the anal fin to the tail fin. Take a second and remove the anal fins here.

Step 5: With the fins removed and an incision down the belly and back you are ready to remove the skin. With your knife peal up a corner of skin and pull toward the tail. Do this on both sides.

Step 6: Next, we want to seperate the backbone from the two fillets. Lay the fish flat on your board and slide your sharp knife from head to tail along the backbone.

Step 7: Now remove the back bone from the remaining fillet using the same method. Toss the backbone into the guts pile. You just got rid of most of the bones.

Step 8: Now we slice at an angle to shave away the remaining bones from the rib cage. They should all come off in one clean cut. Do this to both fillets.

Step 9: Remove the remaining bone where the dorsal fin was cut away. Do this on both fillets.

Step 10: Now all that’s left is a small ridge of bones down the upper center of the fillet. You can feel the bone tips by rubbing your thumb allong the fat part of the fillet. They run at a slight angle about 2/3rds the length of the fillet.

Step 11: Make a cut along both side of the bony ridge. Try to save as much meat as possible. This step takes a few tries to get good at it. You should have a beautiful fillet left in the shape of an upside down V. No Bones.

The last and final step is to rinse the fillets down real good in cold water. Then cook them up any way you choose. If you are freezing them for later place them in a zip-loc freezer bag with some water in it to help avoid freezer burn. I cooked mine using an egg wash and italian seasoned bread crumbs then fried them in margarine. The trout fillets were amazing and I never detected a bone. My two boys ate it all up, but the girls are still a little squeemish about fish in general. Oh well, more fish for me, my wife and the two boys.

Note: Notice the difference in color of the Splake (very red) and the lone Rainbow Trout (Whiter). We caught these fish on the bottom of fishlake (water temp – 32 degrees).

This past week I was able to dust off my fly fishing gear and finally explore some of the local tributaries. I failed my fishing companions as a guide but they were able to each catch one small trout in the icy waters. The weather was a bit windy ahead of a big snow storm that hit later that night. Sam pointed out several spawning beds where it looked like things were happening a few months back. I hope to get up to the Provo River to fish with Sam and Chandler again after they return from their big Patagonia fly fishing expedition. Meanwhile I hope to learn of a few local spots to throw flies.

We were able to sneak in a few days of bass fishing this past week at Lake Powell. We mostly fished right around the bullfrog bay and bullfrog marina. Fishing was hard work but the weather and scenery were wonderful. The afternoon winds stayed away and the temperature was in the upper eighties. We caught a few smallmouth bass and Iwas able to land a couple of nice largemouth bass. On the second day, my father fished alone and snagged a nicestriper and a walleye. Of course, we were all justgrateful to take a break from work and enjoy the lake.

It’s been a little more than a week since I placed these eggs in the tumbler. I have not lost any of the babies at this point. Typically, 10-20% of the eggs will simply not make it. You can see that the frontosa fry are starting to form their stripes. The bodies of the fish are more defined and are gaining size in proportion to the yolk sac. I had to clean out the bottom screen in the tumbler as algae had formed and was limiting the air/water flow through the tube. It is imperative that the eggs remain in constant motion in the tumbling tube. If they settle to the bottom (stop tumbling), they will begin nibbling fins and disease will set in.

I emptied my 125 gallon frontosa tank of all rocks and decor so I could catch the Kigoma seven stripe female that was holding these eggs in her mouth. Mouthbrooders incubate their eggs in the mouth and swish them around until the fry are fully developed. The egg tumbler mimics this swishing motion and keeps the eggs in constant motion via bubbles from a simple air pump. To get the eggs I placed her in a 5 gallon bucket filled with tank water and rocked her back and forth while holding her mouth open. Approximately 20 eggs came out and I released her back into the tank. It is best to keep the female in isolation for a few weeks as she is weakened from not eating. I think re-arranging the rocks and caves gives her enough of an edge to let her recover. You can see that the babies have already formed heads and tails. The egg sack will slowly be consumed internally until the bodies have formed completely. As soon as the little fry can swim freely in the tumbler, they are ready to move to the nursery tank. It is important to remove the bad or infertile eggs so the others don’t spoil.

Any day fishing is better than any day at work.

My first trout caught using nightcrawlers and jet puffed mini-marshmallows.

Antimony burger lunchenjoyed at the nearby Antimony Mercantile after a hard morning of troutfishing.

Later that evening we grilled our trout on the BBQ and enjoyed a delicious trout supper.

Today we set the posts and installed the top and bottom rails. I spent most of my time attaching the chicken wire to the framework. It went really smoothly with the air powered staple gun and half inch staples. I probably put more staples than necessary as I was trying to stretch the wire as tightly as possible. We left about six to eight inches of extra wire below the botttom frame. This will be lined with rocks and covered with dirt to prevent any dogs or cats from getting inside. You can see the custom chicken hutch that we built inside the coop, it has two nesting boxes and this is where they roost at night. John spent most of his time constructing the gate out of scrap lumber. He hopes to cut the posts on one side down to 6 feet and then construct a roof over the new chicken coop. It took us between 4-5 hours to construct.

I gave my friend John a few of our chickens last year. They are doing well and are laying 3-4 eggs per day. Currently they call the garden spot their home, and they sleep up in the hen house at night. But, now that it’s time to till the garden and get ready for Spring John decided the chickens need their own space. Today we dug 6 holes and set 6 post anchors in concrete. The new coop will measure eight feet by sixteen feet with a gate on one side. Our little hen house creation is portable and will still be used for their nesting boxes. John is sitting on the pile of lumber we hope to install tomorrow. We will set six 4×4x8 posts and then use 2×4x8 lumber for the top and bottom rails to attach the chicken wire. He has helped me with numerous projects so I was glad to help him with a project.

This morning I went with a friend into the mountains in search of elk antler sheds. The big bulls drop their antlers every year around the first of March. A lot of hunters in the area like to hike in search of these discarded antlers. It was interesting to learn more about the terrain and migrationhabits of the elk herds in the area. We found a lot of elk signs like these droppings and also plenty of tracks. They seemed to bed down under the cover of large juniper and pinion pine trees. We found several beds and frequently used game trails.

One of the fascinating things for me was the scrapes that we found. The big bulls scrape their antlers against trees both early and late in the season. Some are scraping to get the velvet off their horns early in the season. While late in the season they scrape against trees and branches to try to shake their heavy antlers loose. We found several places where the bull elk had knocked very large branches from trees.

While we found a lot of sign we didn’t find any elk antler sheds. My buddy found this apparent mountain lion kill while combing a steep hillside in search of antlers. It was interesting to examine the area and try to figure out what exactly happened to bring this big bull to its death. It appeared to have been there several months and was picked clean of any meat or edibles. All that remained was the hide, bones and antlers. It was a fun hike and an interesting experience in learning more about the elk herds that live on the mountain above our home.

We went on a drive on one of the local trails. We wanted to test my friends Polaris Ranger in snow conditions on and off the trail. The depth of the snow was around 12 inches when we started up into the foothills. We went quite a ways before we realized that we were still in 2 wheel drive. There were several steep hills on the trail and we had our doubts on each one. But, the Ranger hunkered down and climbed like a champ even through 2 foot snow drifts. The steering was a little crazyand it seemed more like we were aiming the Ranger in a general direction as the tracking was poor in the snow.

After following a trail that previously only snowmobiles had traveled we finally dead-ended and got stuck. It was a steep incline on a north facing slope with a 3-4 foot snow drift. There was no way to go any further, incidentally that is where the snowmobiles had turned around also. We took a different trail to the West and were following a game trail for quite a ways until we reached a deep ravine. It appeared to be a major drainage for the mountain and you could still hear waterflowing under the ice and snow. Click Here to download the 3 MB Quicktime Movie.