Nightfish, and surf-fish.

One of the things that I like about this blog is we don't stick to the subject. But, we go where our hearts and minds take us. So I'll jump in here and take us surf-fishing.

Some of you may be confusing the Columbia River Candle Fish with the Usal Night Fish. When my wife and I first started dating and she starting acting like she was interested in the things that I did, I invited her to go night fishing in Usal. She wanted to know if it was anything like “snipe hunting”. I assured her that there was nothing “irregular about it”, and it was real fishing for real fish. She still looked a little suspicious but she consented to go night fishing with me. Her guard came down a little bit after I hand made her a dip net.

A "night fish net" has smaller woven netting because the night fish are only four inches long. When a wave hits it, it pushes you back a lot harder than a “day fish net”, with larger netting, would. Night fishing is pretty much fish by brail, because they only run at night. It's dark and lonely fishing at night. Nobody turns on a light unless you have to, because people want to keep their eyes accustomed to the dark. It was usually quite surprising to see how many people were out in the surf fishing next to you when somebody turned a light on. Everybody would look up and down the beach to see who was there and holler to “turn the light off!”

Day fishing was simply called surf-fishing. Surf-fish were 6-8 inches long. Usually you would catch about a dozen fish to a dip, when they were running. If you caught fish in a incoming dip you would turn around and back-dip the wave as it washed back to sea. You can see the fish in the back wash and you try to dip in front of the biggest school of fish. The fish try to avoid the net, and a lot will swim around it. On a good day you could catch a five gallon bucket full, which is about all that you and your family can clean and eat. Often a person would take a batch of fish to a friend or a neighbor. It was quite common to share your bounty. Most end up cleaned and frozen in water filled tupper-ware.

Now, I don’t know what the heck a hooligan fish, or a Columbia River fish, or a candle fish is. The small fish that we called “night fish” were about four inches long and the spawned in the surf at the mouth of a creek. They didn’t got up the creek, they didn’t leave the ocean, other that the ones that got caught. The were oily, and some people did call them candle fish.

I would clean them with a pair of scissors. One snip behind the head, just through the backbone, then flip the head away and the guts would pull out with it. Then they would be rinsed and dried on a towel. Then dipped in lemon juice, just enough to wet them, then dumped in a plastic bag full of flour seasoned with salt and pepper, shaken and removed from the bag when fully floured, fried in deep hot oil, and drained on a paper towel. They were eaten just as soon as they cooled off enough to eat. One person usually keeps the fish frying in batches and puts them on the table hot. You eat the whole fish, bones, tail, and all. The bones are too small to notice. Some like to add more lemon, others are too busy eating to put lemon on them. Yes, they are good!

Day-fish, or surf-fish are prepared the same way, only they are hand split down the back bone after cooking and the bones are removed in one whole piece. They are not oily at all, and just thinking about them is making my mouth water right now. I like surf-fish better than trout.

Both fish are good cleaned as noted above, and laid on wire racks in the smoke house, and smoked for two or three days with a very mild smoke, until they are cooked and dried. They are died-and-gone-to-heaven good!

I don’t think that I ever went surf-fishing without somebody quite a bit smarter than me telling me that, “those things are really smelt. In Los Angeles they call them grunion. Only grunion are different, and you have to catch them by hand.”

Now… To get to the thing that is really bothering me. I spent the last two days trying to figure out if what I call “night-fish” are what other people call “hooligan” or “eulachon” that swim up the Columbia River to spawn and die. I don’t think that they are, but I don’t know. The ones that I caught never left the ocean to spawn, they spawn right in the surf. I know that there must be somebody out there that is smarter than me (there always is!) that knows if they are the same critter….