Re: Walleye cheeks… Anyone try walleye “CHIPS”??

Cheeks ARE awesome…

But has anyone had CHIPS?? All of the guides on LOW (we ice fish at the Wigwam once each winter) would always go crazy for the “chips”… They would take all of the decent sized fish (16” or so and up) and cut off the little triangle of meat/cartilage/pectoral fins on the upper belly of the fish. Right from the back/bottom of the gills/belly area to just behind the pectoral fins. They would then throw these in oil for about a minute. Once they cool down a touch, you “slide” the meat off the front of the cartilage piece with your teeth, and then turn the piece around and eat the fins like potato chips. Then discard the cartilage piece.

We tried it, and it wasn’t too bad, for a piece of meat that almost always goes to the garbage pile otherwise. They said just to throw them in oil as is, no batter or anything… but we probably should have salted / peppered them right after taking them out of the oil. They were actually good, but salt would have help a lot…

We thought they were nuts, but each year they kept telling us to try it, and each year we would watch them cut the “chips” out of every walleye that they cleaned for clients. Or they would ask us if they could have our chips. Finally we tried it… Goofy, I know, but not bad!

They go great with a cold one, but what doesn’t right? In fact just last night I cut out a half dozen of em for one of my clients. He couldn’t wait to try em

Never heard of such a thing until I ice fished Red last year and the ” old timers” in the clean shack scolded me for throwing them away. I never did try them, chewing on fins? Bring on some fries for me.

When I was young my grandfather would cut the head off,gut and scale gills. Then deep fry them and eat the skin and fins.If I remember right they tasted pretty good. He also said you can eat anything if its cooked right. He was a smart man, his generation was a lot less wastefull.

Dont mean to spoil your enjoyment but is this the part of the belly that the DNR used to recommend not eating because toxins concentrate there in larger predators?

Yup, sort of. Its not so much the belly, more the throat… Not sure how much murcury or pcb’s get collected by that part of the flesh.

No, you didn’t ruin my enjoyment 1) My fish intake is ceratinly not an extremely common occurance, so I tend not to worry about it. 2) We ate about 4 chips each from fish under 20″, very little meat from very few (younger) fish. 3) We ate the fish from LOW, which I wasn’t aware had warnings. If it does, I don’t want to know, cause it wouldn’t matter to me. 4) The fish were walleyes and sauger, which generally (compared to other fish like salmon, which I eat more of) contain much less fat, which is generally the contaminant collecting portion of the meat and 5) Most of the time, I tend to take those warnings with a grain of salt as the dietary guidelines A) are usually from specific (industrially polluted) waters, (although not necessarily the case with mercury, but hey – they used to let kids play with that stuff barehanded in chemistry class back in the “old days”, with few issues), B) are geared towards children and pregnant women, of which I am neither, C) generally play it extremely safe/conservative with recommended allowances, and D) any other toxins introduced into my body that weekend would have been a GOOD thing – Would have made my system temporarily forget about the issues my liver was having due to

…..Although, maybe thats why the guides up there are so goofy?? Or maybe its just ’cause half of them are Canadian, ay? ok, ok, I’m kidding. Please don’t search me next time I cross the border…

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Dont mean to spoil your enjoyment but is this the part of the belly that the DNR used to recommend not eating because toxins concentrate there in larger predators?

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Large predators? I think if we were eating 3-4 lbers or bigger everyday there might be a problem but 15″-19″ fish I would think would be pretty void of toxins?

I agree. Eating the bellies out of 10 lbers pulled from the Fox river might be somewhat of an issue…. But 12-18″ sauger/walleye from LOW is probably pretty safe.