Fall Crappie and Trout Fishing

I took Mary and Sally crappie fishing Saturday afternoon. It was a perfect 70 degrees, sunny, and we were fishing in an undisclosed top secret crappie mecca in Fulton County. The setting was as good as it gets and the fish were biting just nice for this picture perfect fishing trip. Our mission for this trip was to keep just enough fish for dinner!

We caught 25 crappies between 11 and 13 inches, 4 channel catfish, a 25 inch muskie, and 16 largemouth bass of various sizes. Thats a bunch of fish for only a 2.5 hr afternoon trip and we only needed 8 of the crappies and 3 of the catfish for dinner. Here are the fish we ate:

We drenched the crappie fillets into Chef Todd's sweet chili glaze and cooked them on the grill. While they were simmering we stripped the catfish fillets into 1/2 inch strips, coated them with Nate's secret cajun batter, and deep fried them golden brown. Here is Justin prepping the fillets:

Here are a couple of the other fish that we didn't eat.

Mary kept wanting to eat the big ones, but I finally got her to understand we just take pictures of the big ones and then let em go. They are just for sport and don't taste nearly as good as the little guys.

One story worth mentioning that we don't have a pic of is the HUGE bass that almost got her picture taken of! Mary was reeling in a 10 inch largemouth bass when a much much bigger largemouth bass decided to eat her fish. We got that big bass all the way to the boat when it jumped 2.5 feet out of the water, looked us in the eye, and spit out the little bass! The giant fish was over 2 feet long and not only would of got her picture taken, but would have lived forever over the mantle in the cabin!!

So then on Sunday it was off to church with my family and then out to the fishing park in the afternoon to take some guys trout fishing and wild game feasting. They bought this trip from our fundraising dinner last February. (I auction off several of these trips per year at our fundraising dinner in order to help operate the fishing park. To date we have taken and taught over 2500 kids and seniors fishing free of charge at the park!)

In order to save some words for future stories, I will let the pics tell the rest of the story from perhaps one of the best days of trout fishing 2010!

OK, I didn't take good enough pics of the food so I will have to write a bit more. Chef Todd and Chef Kevin cooked us up a feast of epic proportions. They started off with enough appetizers to feed a small army. The deer kabobs, steaks, and chili glazed mako sharks, cavier, and smoked salmon dill patties were out of this world good. I do have a pic of some of the appetizers being cooked. Can you handle a grill that big chef?

Then for the main course we had crab stuffed trout patties from the freshly caught fish. Here is Chef Kevin preparing the meat:

I wish so bad I would have taken a couple more pics of the food. The crab stuffing was out of this world good. Then we finished off the feast with grilled wildberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream. Don't tell Brook, but I ate so much food at this feast that I can barely breath as I sit here and type this up tonight.

A+ Chef Todd, you hit a home run with that feast! I am thinking Chef Kevin was the 'x' factor in making the best wild game dinner on the planet? One more special thanks to Charlie Brackett for supplying the mako shark his son caught a couple months ago!