Speaking of fishing, the evening of Memorial Day was nicely productive. More on that, later... :-)
French Scrambled Eggs / with sour cream
Elevates the simple egg to gastronomic perfection.
INGS serve 4: 5 eggs 1/2 c dairy sour cream s/p 2 tbl ea butter, chp green onion Paprika/Parsley garnish
Method: Beat eggs, sour cream, s/p just to blend...no more. Saute onion tender in melted butter. Pour in egg mixture; cook done on low heat. As portions thicken, turn eggs w/ spatula; do not stir and do not overcook. Serve garnished w/ paprika and parsley.
So, on Memorial Day evening, we took a bit of a detour. I e-mailed the below (except the exact spot we fished) to the fisheries biologist for “Devils Kitchen Lake”, which we manage to get to once or twice a year, most years:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi, Luke!
The evening of May 25, wifey and I fished @ Devils Kitchen from 6-9 pm ( >>location deleted<< ). Results were excellent, but, one was quite unexpected. In ascending order:
We caught 6 Bluegill under 5” long, and the most vivid color ~ 3” Longear Sunfish that you’d ever hope to see. I kept the two smallest BG for bass / catfish bait.
Keeping us company for a while was a friendly copper-bellied water snake, just over 3’ long, I think. I got a great look at it from about 3 feet away when it raised up a bit to scan US: Very dark grey dorsal coloration, vivid copper color underside with little dark “fingers” of the grey extending a bit into the underside near the snake’s head. I believe these are pretty rare, and I didn’t even think their range extended this far west in Southern Illinois.
I caught a single Largemouth Bass ~ 11-1/2” long. The only surprise was that we didn’t catch one or two more, but, we never seem to catch as many bass at DKL as the Lake Profile suggests. The ledges, even near weeds, may not be the best spot?
I caught 1x Channel Catfish, maybe around 3 lbs, on a 2” garden worm.. Nice fish, real fun on a Bluegill rod(!), and I hope IDNR continues to put CC in DKL — they are GREAT eating out of this water.
We caught 3x Black Bullheads, ranging from about 2 lbs. to the biggest at a whopping 4 lbs. 10 oz. (I put that one on a good precision scale when we got home!) Dang, is that likely to be close to a lake record? This one was hooked on an approx. 3+ inch live Bluegill caught earlier, maybe 10 ft. away from where the Bullhead was hooked.) We’ll see how these cook up, out of this water.
I’m thinking that biggest bullhead has to be several years old, so (mercury concern), I’ll probably eat it myself. At 70 y/o, I’m not hugely worried about mercury when it comes to my own self, any more, as long as I’m not eating fish more than once or twice a week..
All the catfish were caught in almost exactly the same spot: There must be some particular structure down there, in (roughly) 7-8 ft. of water, that they like.
So, great outing, except I was hoping for a few more eater Bluegill, but the catfish more than make up for it (except for my wife - she likes Bluegill). I’m thinking most of the Bluegill over 7” are on the beds now, not swimming off the ledges?
Thanks!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We have an older friend, ex Navy sailor, who really likes catfish, but can’t get out to fish much, any more, so, a little over half, cleaned and frozen, goes to him. :-)