Netting Pickling Suckers

ok so my walleye fishing buddy calls and says, “Didn’t you say you wanted to pickle some fish this season”.

Silly me, i said, “Sure, a LOT of them.”

He sez, “OK, see you a couple. Get your nets ready. Got an 8′ x 8′ net??”

Well, i do, but NOW he had me…

” A couple” turned out to be hours, but that was ok as I got to run my network and see if anyone knew whether you could pickle NON-REFRIGERATED without pressure cooking. (you can’t) But that took more than two hours to discover.

So, he and i and our two 7yos went to the cold water stream. On the way he said “You post this on IDO and you’ll ruin BOTH of our reputations.” WEll, I figured he might have a reputation to squander, but i sure didn’t…

So up the stream we went just at dusk. Yup, they were in the stream doing their dance with god.

We tried driving them up stream. Nope.

We tried driving them down stream. Nope.

So, in he waded. I sure am glad he’s taller than me because he went over his hip boots right away. ICYICYICY.

But, the fish were in the deep pools and thick.

An hour later we had 30 of the prettiest (no pictures yet, but some tomorrow) 2-3# cold water suckers i’ve seen in a long time.

A buddy who runs a fish processing plant told me to drain them and ice them for the nite and filet them tomorrow.

So, i finally got some use out of that big Beckman in the walleye boat.

Tomorrow, i buy 5 gals of vinegar, 5 lbs of onions,, 15 lbs of sugar and pickling spices in bulk. Got a whole mess of 1/2 gal canning jars and 7 pressure cookers, so it’s time to put up suckas!!

The 7yos have been having a blast.

Anyone wanna drive out to the Rush River?? The beer will be free and you go home with as much pickled sucker as you want!!!

Netting begins at 10am…

Watch it Stu- I hope you aren’t netting those suckers from the Rush, as BOTH the Trout and the Netting and Spearing regs say that you can’t “net” rough fish in designated trout streams, they can only be taken by “HAND”. It even states in the regs that by hand means no nets of any kind.

nope not playing in the back yard. got blessed by the local constabulary also. not trout water. lips are zipped after that tho…

I’ve never heard of “non- refrigerated” pickling…

How does that work?

And how would we meet you out there when your lips are zipped

nah, nah, nah we meet at MY house to butcher FIRST. Then if you pass the ZIP LIP test we go netting again…

Also, if you are going to store non-refrigerated, you must pressure can the stuff. Am trying to find someone who can tell me what the safe times are. The extension services times are too long: WAY more than safe for killing clostridia, but turn the fish to mush. But, i’ve got a couple of days of brining and vinegaring before i need to do that so plenty of time. Have a buddy checking with his mother about how she did it and they eat pickled sucker all winter long. non refrigerated. (yes, of course you refrigerate after you open the jar, silly)

Interesting….
Let us know how it works..I’m curious as heck ….

Just got a report that if you can with too much vinegar, they mush out.
looking for proven recipes…

3-1/2 gals of cutlets brining currently. I’m leaning toward pickling them all refrig style since there are only 3+ gals…

ok, out of the brine and into the vinegar. Out of the bottle it’s 5% acetic acid. Used one gal to cover. will roll in 24 hours. I may run long on this stage as suckers are bonier than other meat.

If you can these at all with heat/pressure you’ll stand the chance of having the juice jelly too. There is nothing more disgusting than jellied pickle juice in fish. Been there, but won’t go back.

my concern also.
i’m going to look over the pickled herring at the store and try to work backwards from there…

Cold packing is the only way to go with pickled fish in my opinion. If you need to, get a used refer for the garage to do it in if you want that kind of quantity.

Another consideration with the herring in the stores is that it is a salt water fish to start with. It handles different from fresh water fish.