Early morning bottom bash

[Peter Nelson]

Went out early this morning at Port Stephens for a quick bottom bash as I had some appointments this afternoon.

Weather was ok with sight breeze from the north west.

Found a few fish and left them biting as I had to get home .

Got a couple of Trag, Perlies, small snapper and bonito.

Found skinning the Trag a bit difficult as its so soft. Worked out my technique by the time I did the last one.

Photos of fish and smoked bonito i did up yesterday.

 

 

[PaddyT]

Looks good- let your fish firm up on ice or in the fridge before skinning- helps a lot- and different species take different amounts of time to hit rigor mortis.

[Rah]

Nice feed there mate. 

[Berleyguts]

Nice feed, Peter. How’d you smoke the bonito? What kind of smoker do you have?

[Peter Nelson]

1 hour ago, Berleyguts said:

Nice feed, Peter. How’d you smoke the bonito? What kind of smoker do you have?

 

I’ve got a charmate

soaked it it a brine solution(salt, brown sugar and water) for about 6hrs. Not sure how long I should do this step for as everything I read says something different.

just used heat beads and threw some wet hickory chips in at the start.

i think it was in there for 1.5  - 2hrs and was still moist inside. Once it cooled down it firmed up more. Kids love it which means I need to do double the amount next time.

Im going to mix a bit up make a smoked fish dip.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Peter Nelson
Wrong word used

[Berleyguts]

24 minutes ago, Peter Nelson said:

 

I’ve got a charmate

soaked it it a brine solution(salt, brown sugar and water) for about 6hrs. Not sure how long I should do this step for as everything I read says something different.

just used heat beads and threw some wet hickory chips in at the start.

i think it was in there for 1.5  - 2hrs and was still moist inside. Once it cooled down it firmed up more. Kids love it which means I need to do double the amount next time.

Im going to mix a bit up make a smoked fish dip.

Sounds great. I’ll try it in the Chargriller with the offset smoker box. I’ve had it as a dip before. Yummo!

[Scratchie]

Nice work Pete! The conditions looked great yesterday and you came home with a ripper feed there! No hook incidents! Great morning  

cheers scratchie!!! 

[rickmarlin62]

Nice size trag pete  good feed  sounds like a fun day..rick

[Peter Nelson]

Yeah great conditions , a little bit windy first thing and I thought here we go it's going to blow hard again but it got better.

Kept my hands well clear of the lure this time

[Peter Nelson]

2 minutes ago, rickmarlin62 said:

Nice size trag pete  good feed  sounds like a fun day..rick

Yeah good day Rick, shame I had to leave early, oh well save a few for next trip

[PaddyT]

Hi Peter, just noticed you said youve got a charmate- thinking of getting one- can you get a "cold" smoke on the fish or is it still a hot smoke?

[Peter Nelson]

11 minutes ago, PaddyT said:

Hi Peter, just noticed you said youve got a charmate- thinking of getting one- can you get a "cold" smoke on the fish or is it still a hot smoke?

Still a hot smoke I guess due to the food being directly above the heat source, there are 2 heights which you can smoke at.

I used to have a smaller rectangular   one years ago and that smoked very quick compared to this one.

I guess you could limit the amount of heat beads or charcoal to reduce the heat to get more of a cold smoke.

 

[PaddyT]

Cheers for that