Spearing suckers on the Stanislaus

Cross-posted from the spearing forum because it's a report:

We kayaked from Knights ferry to orange blossom rd, and hopped out for a little spearing in better places.  It was a pretty good trip, shot 4 suckers and saw hundreds more (literally, schools of 1-6 every 30 feet) also missed at least 10 shots.  Probably my worst ever accuracy score with the speargun, not sure why though they are kind of thin with big scales - I may have gotten lots of glancing hits.  I think a trident point would be more effective on them than a rock point.  Also saw a couple trout and about 4 stripers in the 10lb class.****  I almost whacked a striper (lined up then saw stripes) because they were schooling with some of the suckers and the vis in that pool was a little low ~8'.  Most places the vis was 15-20 feet.  Oh and the water was mendocino cold.  I only had a 5mm farmer john and wasn't able to stay in the water very long.  It was fun to let the current carry me downstream to the fish though.

When I was a kid my dad used to spear and net suckers on the shore of lake superior, I'll find out how he cooked them and report back if they're good.  Supposed to be pretty bony...  I know they're often pickled to dissolve the smaller bones.  Like carp, there isn't a limit on suckers, I could easily see a 100 fish day for someone who's dialed in on them - if they wanted.  One could also hop out and try casting for stripers or trout when you see them, or call in an airstrike from another guy on a kayak.

There were also a lot of giant crayfish hanging out in the open, if I'd had a bag to put them in I could have collected enough mini-lobsters to do something with them.

Wow, that sounds like a blast.  I wouldn't have thought of that.  These are native fish on the Stanislaus?

I think so, they're more of a gold color than the suckers we had in WI.  I read a fair amount about them because DFG regs allow spearing of 'western sucker' and they're also (usually) called "sacramento sucker", but it wasn't entirely clear they were the same species without some digging.  They outnumbered other large fish in the river by at least 20 to 1.  I don't know if they're around year-round or if there's a run of them this time of year, as was the case with the sucker run in WI.

No catfish eh?  We use to catch those suckers, which are in the carp family I think,  on the Merced river when I was growing up and we'd give 'em to this old man in town and he would gut, scale and then cut em in half and fry them coated in salt, pepper and flour.  Tasted alright, better with globs of tartar sauce. 

That definetley sounds like A blast. I wish we had A decent river around here to do that. I dont know if id eat them.

They've got to be better than milkfish... 

good to hear you had a good time on the stani. going to plan a knights ferry to orangeblossom trip next spring. As I recall it was pretty easy to find out when the big release days were, I just need to find that number.

GET THE F@@K OUT. I was raised on Lake Huron and went sucker spearing. We smoked them as they are too bony to eat otherwise. We speared them with trident spears while standing in the creeks running into the lake. Occasional mean ass pike mixed in.

I'm married to a Missouri farm girl ( for 35 years now ), and carp and various other "suckers" were a regular part of the diet down on the farm. When the 'Men' went fishin it ment carp or catfish. I know cause I went along many times. The 'Fish Fry' after was always a good deal - fillet & score the slabs deeply every inch and deep fry in corn meal. The scoring broke up the bones pretty good and the flavor was not bad. I think any fresh water fish's flavor depends on where it was caught, rivers being the most favorable and lakes being the most questionable. Like Shad, they have the same branching kind of bone structure and many anglers think of them as inedible, only because of the bone structure. Too much trouble. Well, steamed or baked Shad falls off the bones and is very delicate and fine tasting fish. And of course the roe is a bonus.

Very cool,
does sound like a blast

thanks for the report

dale

sounds like a blast.   I have caught many suckers there on the fly rod.   
I have also speared and eaten a sucker taken on the American River near Sacramento.   Lots of bones, but a very nice, delicate meat.   Like someone said earlier, if taken in clean water, the taste is pretty good.     But the bones are a trouble, unless say, deep fried or pickled in vinegar.

I did the same trip you described in a canoe and got swamped trying to navigate the boulder studded falls right below the launch.   Were you able to handle that in the kayak?

Did you have to bring 2 vehicles to shuttle, or is there some shuttle service there?    Ever since that trip, i have been interested in going back in my kayak.   Would be a blast to tie into one of those stripers.

We had two vehicles and five kayaks.  So far we've run about 10 kayaks through the rapids and haven't had any incidents there, though it may be worse at different flows.  The two times I did it the flow was 440 and 380cfps. IMO it's perfect right now.

I was looking forward to trying those fish a couple different ways, but when I got home from work my dad had filleted all of them and microwaved them in a big dish with a bunch of left over fish curry.  The curry clobbered their flavor, microwave cooking wasn't flattering for the texture, and making it into a messy dish made the bones much more annoying.  *sigh*  It tasted fine, but so does freezerburned fish in that dish, so I'll have to call the taste testing inconclusive.  I know with northern pike you can cut and pull the fillets apart the long way and all the y bones will end up half sticking out of one side or the other so you can remove them all easily - but it has to be fried, grilled, smoked, or cooked in some other method that leaves you with a whole, clean fillet that's easy to work with.

There are several upper midwesterners on NCKA because fishing from canoes is very common up there and I guess it's kind of natural when coming out here to think "now what's the equivalent of a canoe for the ocean?" and that line of reasoning ends at a kayak.

With marginal quality fish like that, I say "smoke em if ya got em."

That sounds like fun!!  I would love to try some fresh water spearing, that visibility sounds awesome compared to other fresh water I have been use to. 

Norm

Eating carp! Never tried it and probably never will, ever since an episode at a lake near the Stanislaus a few years ago. Used to pal around with a guy who was into bowfishing. Well, he wanted to try for a carp on the surface about 30 yards away but had no intention of eating it if he caught it. I didn't think he should shoot it if he was just going to dump the carcass. Well...he hit it dead center. So I took the carcass home and had it smoked and then mailed it back to him 2 weeks later. One evening, I get a phone call and it's the bowhunter friend wanting to know what the hell that was that I sent him. He said it tasted like manure. I guess he didn't recognize the skin pattern and arrow hole that was still evident. Anyway, now I know what fish was feeding on.