JPetermann
TVWBB Member
New first for me - 34 lb King Mackerel in St. Andrews Bay on a 00 Clarkspoon while trolling for Spanish. Didn’t see that one coming! For those of you who may not be familiar with Spanish Mackerel: they're a smaller cousin to the King Mackerel (much smaller). They invade our bays in the early Spring when water temps reach 68-69F following the baitfish. They're fun to catch and are actually pretty tasty if fried fresh. The King Mackerel however typically remains offshore in deeper, stronger currents with a larger food supply. The big kings (20+ pounds) are called Smoker Kings since they can make the drag on a reel literally smoke during one of their initial and lightning fast runs! They have a mouthful of razor sharp teeth and can easily sever mono line and sometimes even wire leaders. I got lucky and landed this stud on Abu Garcia baitcaster w/ 8lb line line and 20lb mono leader. He gave me a brutal 30 min fight before finally boating and we had to give chase to keep from having the reel spooled. After all, I was targeting Spanish Mackerel which average 14-18 inches this time of year. Gave a few steaks away to the neighbor and since pelagic fish don't freeze well, the rest ended up on the Weber smoker to become one big batch of smoked fish dip.
Talk about some hefty fish fillets (and these were just half of one side)!
Got started by doing a 24 hour dry brine of the fillets in 50/50 kosher salt and brown sugar
The brining result 24 hours later (it really pulled out a lot of water from the fish)
Fillets pulled from brine and soaked/rinsed in fresh water for 30 mins to remove excess sodium
Dried off fillets and placed them in front of a fan to develop a good pellicle. "A pellicle is a skin or coating of proteins on the surface of meat, fish or poultry, which allow smoke to better adhere to the surface of the meat during the smoking process. Wikipedia" It took about two hours for the fish to get tacky with a good pellicle coating.
WSM 22 fired up and getting happy. Minion Method w/ approx. 5 lbs KBB and a half chimney lit. Threw on a few chunks of Cherry wood and brought to temp. Tried to stay around 200F for the first hour and then dropped to 180F for the remainder of cook.
...to be continued on a separate post due to photo attachment restraints...
Talk about some hefty fish fillets (and these were just half of one side)!
Got started by doing a 24 hour dry brine of the fillets in 50/50 kosher salt and brown sugar
The brining result 24 hours later (it really pulled out a lot of water from the fish)
Fillets pulled from brine and soaked/rinsed in fresh water for 30 mins to remove excess sodium
Dried off fillets and placed them in front of a fan to develop a good pellicle. "A pellicle is a skin or coating of proteins on the surface of meat, fish or poultry, which allow smoke to better adhere to the surface of the meat during the smoking process. Wikipedia" It took about two hours for the fish to get tacky with a good pellicle coating.
WSM 22 fired up and getting happy. Minion Method w/ approx. 5 lbs KBB and a half chimney lit. Threw on a few chunks of Cherry wood and brought to temp. Tried to stay around 200F for the first hour and then dropped to 180F for the remainder of cook.
...to be continued on a separate post due to photo attachment restraints...
