smoked shad

I'm testing out some smoked shad on the gang at work today.

Comments were:

a bit bony, tastes somewhat like tuna, and tasty.

These are from the batch I caught in June.

They have a nice look to them when they come out of the smoker and these are the first fish that left oil deposits in the catch basin in my smoker.

please work out a way to email samples to all of us, bill. thank you.

john

smell your computer screen. I had some on my fingers when I typed this!

dang, bill, my screen smells like forest fire smoke! just WHERE did you smoke those fish, anyway? huh??

john

Biill-- Smoked shad, huh? That's something I've had in the back of my mind since moving to the coast. I see the little buggers smoked and then canned. Mmmm. Talk about finger food in the boat.

So, we got the reports from your co-workers, how do YOU like it? Worth doing? If so, a couple day shad trip may be on the calendar for next year.

At the moment, I'm doing a load of chum in my efforts to clear the freezer for the deluge of fillets undoubtedly heading its way. This won't be around long enough to can... I'm running the smoker right outside my office, and the smell is driving me crazy.

Keith

Next year when I start getting the fish counts I'll post when I'm headed down to fish. I'll probably be doing a 3 day weekend and if like this year, will go to below the John Day dam. I've heard the crowds there are lots lighter than below Bonneville.

If people want to come along we can do a shad fishathon....

They're tasty enough to warrant keeping some each year for smoking. I'd like to play with canning them as I've had canned shad that the Kirkland cannery did years ago before it closed up shop. It was better than tuna.

The brine I used was the Luhr Jensen recipe for salmon that called for soy sauce. I forget the brine name that the factory assigned it. Used alder for chips and smoked the shad for about 12 hours in the bottom two shelves of a Big Chief. Used three pans of chips as I wanted a golden brown color on the fish. Also I scaled the fish before I smoked them. No heads, no tails.

Zen -
Glad to see you got out for the shad fishing! I'm also glad you were able to get good results smoking shad. I tried last year with a couple I caught. Smoked them within 24 hours but I'm sorry to say they were the worst fish I'd ever tasted.

Now I can see it's not the fish.......it's the fisherman that is smoking them.

I'll have to try your recipe next time around. The whole shad fishing party sounds like fun. Let us know if you want to do it next year........those shad are fun!!

JK :p

I'll have a trip back down next year. It was fun fishing for them as they do tug on the end of the line. I'll probably be returnng to my roots (true calling) next year and take my fly rod down there. I think it would be a hoot catching them on a 5 wt.

I think the key to getting good smoked shad is to first of all have good shad. Sounds like yours were ok. I also kept them cool while brining them. Refrigerator or ice around brining bucket works. I used ice. Then it would be to dry them properly. I let mine airdry for 2 hours and get tacky. Then I smoked them for 12 -13 hours. Next time I'll try 10 hours. I also put 5 slits on each side of the shad so the brine could get in and the fish oil could seep out during the smoking process.

These are the first fish I've smoked when I had standing oil in the catch pan on the bottom of the smoker.