Here Fishy Fishy!

Yesterday Captain Bob called and asked us to go out on Lake Huron with him to fish for Lakers. Oh what fun we had!

Captain Bob and I solving the world's problems while watching the poles.

We caught six fish!

Then we headed to the fish station to clean these buggers up. I'm only showing five here because the fish were sliding all over and Steve was trying to keep them from falling to the floor.

Steve slaving away while I take pictures. I help him clean herring but he says cleaning Lakers is a lot more complicated.

All righty then...

When we arrived back home we vacuum packed them and placed them in the freezer.

Thanks so much Captain Bob!

Fishing With Captain Mark

Steve and I were blessed to have the opportunity to do some Lake Huron fishing this past week. I shared this picture on Instagram, but my mom isn't on Instagram so I thought I'd do a post to show you and her the fish we caught that day. It is organized chaos for sure! (A quote from our captain.:)

This is Captain Mark. In the background is Greg. There were four of us in the boat.

Captain Mark sent me this picture of his boat from the outside looking in on beautiful Lake Huron.

Thanks Captain Mark!

It doesn't look like it but I have a fish on and am trying like crazy to get this bad boy up from a depth of 95' to the boat.

Captain Mark ready with the net.

Yay!

Here is Steve netting one for Captain Mark.

Another nice one!

Here Greg has one on and Steve is the net guy.

No, no, I was never the net guy. Too big of a responsibility and I'm outnumbered.

Occasionally a freighter would glide by.

Once we each caught our limit, we headed back in which looked like a good idea anyhow.

Look at them Lakers!! Just a great day fishing!

Now its time to get to work! Captain Mark has an awesome cleaning station.

We vacuum packed most but saved some for dinner. The following pictures won't be my best because it was dark outside and I rarely use the flash on my camera but in this case it was necessary.

This is how I make my Spinach Dip Crusted Laker.

No recipe to print, it is that easy.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

I took one and a half Laker fillets and placed them in a Butter Flavored Pam sprayed 9x13 baking dish.

I took a store bought container of spinach dip...

...and spooned it over the fillets covering them completely.

Then I sprinkled everything with shredded Parmesan cheese. Into the oven it went, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Then I turned on my broiler to high, sat on the floor and peeked through the door until the topping started to bubble and brown slightly - about 3 minutes.

Perfect!

Unlike the picture, but hey, conditions can't always be perfect I guess.

We paired it with broccoli out of our garden.

Let me know if you try this recipe and if you give it a thumbs up or down. Thanks!!

Have a wonderful summer weekend everyone!

~Debi

First Time Herring Fishing!

We heard they were catching herring out in the Lake Huron waterways and the St. Mary's River, so Steve and I thought we would give it a try. Neither one of us had ever caught a herring.

We ended up with five!

We should have had six but one got away just inches away from being in the boat.

We won't talk about the fact we forgot to take our net.

Ahem.

It's relaxing fishing for herring because all you do is stare at your bobber. And I mean stare. Because they're sneaky fish that will steal your wax worm in a heartbeat. If I look away for a split second, Steve yells, "Your bobber just went down!" If Steve looks away for a split second, I yell, "Your bobber just went down!"

Yes, we missed quite a few I will admit.

But once you set the hook, it's a blast winding them in.

"Les Cheneaux Islands are a group of 36 small islands, some inhabited, along 12 miles of Lake Huron shoreline on the southeastern tip of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States."

I got the above info of where we were from Wikipedia.

Beyond that little island and the sailboat lies Lake Huron - one of the five Great Lakes.

This is Government Island and the whole island is a State Park. Steve and I often stop here and sit a spell while watching all the boats go by. Much history and boathouses abound in this area. For past pictures of some of the boathouses and islands, you can visit this post Finding the Perfect Boathouse for Two Buck Duck.

We made two meals out of our herring catch, and last night we had our first try at it. I've only ever eaten pickled herring (thanks mom!), so this was new to both of us.

And we love, love our grilled veggies: cherry tomatoes, portabella baby mushrooms, green pepper and vadalia onion cut in chunks, and fresh broccoli from my garden. I wash it all, place it in a bowl, then pour garlic infused olive oil and basil infused olive oil over all and mix. Spray a grill pan with cooking spray, place the veggies inside and grill on medium to high. We put the veggies on first. These take almost 20 minutes to a half hour. And occasionally stir the veggies to get them evenly charred if you like charredness.

Simple! And you get to enjoy the warm summer evening outside while also...

...grilling your fish. I sprayed the grill basket with LOTS of cooking spray. Then poured melted butter on one side. The other side of the fillets had skin on. If we grill trout with no skin on either side, I pour butter on both sides, and use a basting brush to get every spot. After the butter comes lemon juice which I squeeze from a fresh lemon over all. Then I liberally sprinkle season salt and smoked paprika. Being summertime, I went to my herb garden and cut out a few sprigs of fresh rosemary. Steve grills the fish on medium heat approximately 12 minutes, flipping every 3 minutes or so. We like ours a little charred.

Have I mentioned that?

We loved our first try at herring. Tomorrow is going to be a great summer day so we are going to try to get a few more for the freezer. We heard they don't stick around long, and neither will they at our house!

Touring the Tahquamenon River

We're past the peak of the Fall colors up here in the UP, but there is still much beauty to be found. The weather has been finicky - the weatherman calls it Lake Effect (LE) rain showers.

Well, he ain't kiddin'.

It can be so pretty outside, the sun shines, the birds sing, the dogs bask...then, a downpour!

We all run for cover.

And this is when I just filled the clothesline with laundry.

At least it isn't Lake Effect snowshowers.

Yet.

Last week Steve and I took a ride up the Tahquamenon River in our boat, when the weather was absolutely beautiful up here. We launched the boat just south of Paradise, Michigan.

We put in at the mouth of the Tahquamenon River. It was a calm warm day and Lake Superior was lying flat.

But we didn't go east onto Lake Superior. We went northwest up the Tahquamenon River to see the Fall colors. Here we are going underneath US 123.

There isn't much color in this picture, but I love how the water mirrors the pines, trees, sky, and clouds.

There is quite a bit of debris in the river so both Steve and I were on alert.

You have to look close, but I managed a quick shot of these two ducks flying off.

I pointed my camera over the side of the boat at the water for this shot.

More debris...

Sometimes the skies threatened rain.

We rounded a bend and found these people crossing the river in rowboats.

We realized we had made it to our destination - the Lower Tahquamenon Falls. We weren't able to get any closer as there were stumps and rocks and sticks in the way.

It took us approximately 17 miles to get here by boat from the mouth of the Tahquamenon River.

Here's a few posts I did on the Upper Falls:

Majestic

Behind the Falls...

Tahquamenon Falls in the Winter

Here's a LINK that will take you to a website that will show pictures of both the Upper and Lower Falls.

Eventually the clouds started to break up.

The sunshine illuminated the colors.

We anchored here and fished awhile.

We caught nothing but a few fish did tease us.

Back to the mouth and Lake Superior.

The road home...