Cheap Smoke

Sometimes keeping it simple and cheap just makes sense. As a father of 3, an IT Director, and bit of an outdoorsman in between, life can get complicated and busy very quickly. Following a few years of experimentation, I've found the perfect balance of a few simple key ingredients coupled with a bare bones, no frills smoker to make a smoked product friends and colleagues devour.

Alder smoke is filling the crisp September air in my backyard as I type this now so lets start with the smoker. It's not fancy, but its simple design that doesn't even include a temperature gauge is perfect for smoking fish*. The Luhr Jensen Little Chief Smoker** from Hood River, OR cost less than $100 and has been in my cooking arsenal for more than 15 years. I'd love to have one of those "high end" smokers for beef, pork, etc.. (and maybe someday) but when it comes to fish, keeping things simple and low seems to work perfectly.

Keeping it simple, my primary brine is a dry rub with only 4 ingredients. For a Little Chief full of salmon (or trout), I use the following:

• 3 cups brown sugar
• 3/4 cup of kosher salt
• 1 heaping tablespoon chili powder

I've tried several wet and dry brines but have found that the dry rub variety somehow penetrates the fish better and makes less of a mess. With skin side down, I cover the fish with the brine and let sit out for 2 hours then cover and refrigerate overnight (total brine time is about 14 to 18 hours). In the morning, I gently rinse each piece and load the smoker where the fish chunks will sit for another 2 hours before I start smoking.

The secret ingredient... a finishing glaze of honey or jelly. For years, I've glazed about half of every batch of smoked salmon with honey. I recently found an even more mouth watering, addicting option; Kelly's Habanero Jelly. It's simple, just brush each piece of fish with jelly during the last few minutes of smoke and you've created one addicting smoke product.

*I've even done turkey breast in this smoker a few times. 1 pan of hickory chips to get a solid smoke line followed by finishing off to 165 degrees in the oven is perfect
**The Little Chief and Big Chief smokers are now made by smokehouse products and not Luhr Jensen

Buoy 10 Catching

Today was one of those days I'd only heard about.  The kind of day where it should be called catching instead of fishing. The perfect day on the water where nothing goes wrong* and there are so many fish in the river, you're almost hoping for it to slow down so you catch your breath from all the chaos.

Given the strong Coho/Silver Salmon return this year, Fish and Wildlife upped the Coho retention to 3 fish per person within the saltwater of the Columbia River estuary. Although Chinook/King retention is closed in that area, the opportunity to catch a large bounty of the better tasting Coho** makes the long single day trip of fishing the estuary much more appealing (vs. Buoy 10 Fish Camp).

High tide was at 6:09am so Erik and I met at our carpooling rally point at 3:30am and had the boat in the water by 5:30. We had a bumpy, slightly wet, boat ride across the river and up to where I wanted to start following the tide and dropped our lines in calmer waters at around 6:15. What would transpire next was unbelievable fishing excitement and chaos.

For a period of 2 hours, I literally never sat down. I was either cutting bait, baiting hooks, reeling in fish, or netting keepers. By 8:30, we'd gone through nearly 30 plug cut green label herring and hooked into 22 Coho and 2 Chinook (released unharmed). Those numbers average out to a fish hooked about every 5 minutes. If you equate for the fishing time lost to reel in and net or release each fish, those stats translates to some serious non-stop action while lines were wet. There was a time when Erik hadn't even had his bait in the water 15 seconds before getting a fish... LITERALLY!! And another time I got bit reeling in to check/change bait.

The same drill we did last month of dragging 12oz lead on bottom in 28 to 32' of water worked for us but I am not sure how much depth would have mattered. There were just so many fish in the river to worry too much about depth. My go-to flasher I wrote about in my August post once again was responsible for the lion's share of the fish. Again, I am not sure how much it mattered but it's interesting that rod got hit more frequently.

Oh what a sweet ride back to port with a limit of fish and lunch time still several hours away. It's such a relaxing feeling to be done for the day while several other boats are still launching. However, I am still left in wonder at how long that bite could have lasted had we weeded through fish in an effort to keep going. The icing on the cake was seeing a healthy cow elk cross the launch lines at Hammond as we pulled the boat out of the water.

Little boat and a very big boat

Cow elk crossing the launch lanes at Hammond

A day not soon forgotten for sure. Now, if only the Seahawks had won too!

*Well, almost. One rod did get tangled twice

**I'd rather catch the big Chinook but when it comes to the grill, I'd rather have the candy red Coho sizzling