Played hooky yesterday with Jack and met LynnMc up at the Tail Race Canal shortly before sun up to try our luck at catching some roe shad. I’d not been up there in years! Glad I remembered the evening before to purchase a fresh water stamp as I’d pretty much given up freshwater fishing long ago. According to the DNR officer who checked me after putting the boat on the trailer and getting the truck and trailer out of the way at the landing, there were few reports of shad caught yesterday. That made me feel better with the two that we caught (1 roe shad for Jack and 1 nice buck for Lynn which was perfect for dinner for us and bottom fishing bait for Lynn). What I did catch with my cam was as good, if not better, than the fish! Plus, we had a GREAT day on the water, and we were NOT at work!!!
This was supper:
After we enjoyed some of these:
Since I only had the one set of shad roe, I made a pot of grits cooked with cream to go with it (thinking Jack would get full on the grits and leave me his roe!
) I lightly boiled the roe for just a few minutes (after thoroughly cleaning and separating) in a mixture of salted water with herbs before dusting lightly with seasoned flour and baking in butter at 300 degrees for about 40 minutes. It sure isn’t the prettiest dish in the world, but, MAN, is it tasty!
The DNR officer said the shad were slow running this year, so I’m hoping that means there will be more to catch in the coming days!
