New Fishing Blog

Well I guess the blogging jeans have been passed on in the McConnell household – that’s right my husband is now an official blogger!

He started his own fishing blog a couple weeks ago and has become addictive to the blog-o-sphere since he first began. We even had a Blogging 101 class last night at home. Which was loads of fun for me! So, please be sure and check out his own blog: Real Fishing “Midwest Style.”

Also in the news at our house is my husband’s weekend Top 10 win in the FLW Stren Fishing Tournament at Lake Ozark. He fished for three days last week and made it to the championship day to place in the Top 10 of the highly prestigious tournament circuit. We are all very proud of his accomplishment.

To celebrate my husband’s new blog and last tournament win, I’ve got a fishy recipe today!

Grandma's Hush Puppies

by Lane

½ c. ap flour

1 ½ c. corn meal (1/3 yellow, 2/3 white)

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. sugar

1 egg

¾ c. milk

1/3 cup corn

3 scallions with green tops

Mix ingredients together in order and fry in bacon or fish grease.

Congrats Charlie

This isn't a normal post of my cooking blog, but I have to congratulate my husband. He took 1st place in a recent Heartland Pro-Am Bass Fishing Tournament at Grand Lake. I'm VERY proud of him.

McConnell Wins Amateur Title With Big Limit

The final event of the 2006-07 Heartland Pro-Am season sponsored by Tracker Marine/Nitro Boats came down to which anglers found the best shallow water pattern. Several days of clouds and drenching rain soaked Grand Lake in Grove, Oklahoma. This blast of refreshment after a month of brutal heat had the bass on the move and hungry. Over half of the Pros brought in a four fish limit, even after the front passed through and the sun broke out.

This event had two focal points. Not only was this the final tournament of the season to “make or break” at trip to the Pro-Am Championship, crucial points were on the line for final Angler-of-the-Year standings. Add the unique obstacle of only a four fish limit resulting in tight tournament standings and you had a nail biting finish to a great season.

Sacking a three fish limit that would have pushed him into the top 10 of the Pro Division was Amateur winner Charlie McConnell. Charlie’s 10.40 lb sack included the 2nd Big Bass of his division to net a total winning of $817. A Super Spook did the damage from shallow gravel flats and casting the bait as close to shore as possible. A couple twitches of the bait resulted in strikes near the bank. The key to his bite was the presence of baitfish on the flats.

Hush Puppies for Your Fish Fry

After my post about Cooking Your Catch I was asked about a good hush puppie recipe so here it is.

This is my grandmother’s recipe that I was raised on in my home. There is no other recipe that even touches these hush puppies. I have made one change to the original recipe however. I like to add about 1/3 cup of corn to the batter, gives a little extra bite to this wonderful side dish.

With summer on its way….it’s time for crappie fishing and I can’t wait.

[PHOTO of Hush Puppies]

Grandma's Hush Puppies
by Lane

½ c. ap flour
1 ½ c. corn meal (1/3 yellow, 2/3 white)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
1 egg
¾ c. milk
1/3 cup corn
3 scallions with green tops

Mix ingredients together in order and fry in bacon or fish grease.

Cooking Your Catch

I’m a fisherman’s wife. I don’t know if I’ve ever said that before on my site, but it is true. And in most cases this means being a “fisherman’s widow”, but this is just not true.

Yes, my fisherman is incoherent when any type of fishing show is on ESPN, many weekends are spent traveling pre-fishing and at tournaments, when he needs a break for the hustle and bustle of work he retreats to lake (like most) and then there is always the hope that he’ll come home from a tournament with a check or a good showing.

There is however the benefits of being a fisherman’s wife : The quality time spent with one another on the lake enjoying each other’s time. (You can view some photos from a recent fishing trip together on the Brownfield Blog.)

Whether you enjoy bass fishing as much as your spouse making the effort to go fishing together is worth it’s weight in gold. Fishing can be a relaxation and a break from the real world for the both of you. Besides, there is nothing I enjoy more than standing beside my husband "chunking and reeling" trying to catch more fish than him.

I grew up eating the fish my father brought home from his daily catch, usually bass, crappie or walleye. Some of my favorites. But since marrying a bass fisherman, we don’t eat much bass anymore. (Why? Bass Fisherman believe in turning bass loose to catch them another day, I call it being a conservationist.)

But there are many (like my father and brothers) that enjoy eating bass. And there aren’t many recipes out there for cooking bass fish. So, I’ve complied some from my family’s home.

Let most of your bass go, but keep a few to eat. They make great meals!

In my opinion, there are very few meals that beat fried fish. When filleting bass you end up with a skinless, boneless piece of meat. I wash them off and put them into plastic ziploc bags, dividing them into meal size packages. After the fish go into the bag I put about a tablespoon of salt in the bag and fill it with water, squeezing out any air and sealing them. Sitting in the refrigerator for a day or so in the salt water seems to improve the flavor.

When I am ready to cook the fish, I rinse the salt off and prepare them in different ways.
For frying, I pat them dry, roll the fillets in corn meal and drop them into a "Frydaddy" deep fat cooker. They brown in about five minutes and are ready to eat. Fillets from a two pound bass are big enough that my husband and I eat about two each, along with french fries or some of grandma’s hush puppies.

Here are some other ways to cook bass:
If you like baked fish place in a baking dish, put dots of butter on it, covered it with a sliced onion and some garlic power and cooked it in the microwave for a few minutes (or in the oven.
Place fillet in a small baking dish, covered them with Picante sauce and nuke them for five minutes. Good and tasty with a baked potato and a salad.

If you ever cook panfry some deer burgers, keep the grease, get it hot and put a fillet into the grease - with nothing on it. When the fillets began to turn white around the edges, I turned them and poured a little Italian salad dressing on them. By the time they had cooked through, the dressing had flavored them and they were a nice brown on both sides. This kind of tastes like swordfish, seriously it does.

For a very good baked fish, take some dry stuffing mix, crush it into a powder and coat the fillets with it. I put them into a baking dish, put a pat of butter on top of each and cook them in the microwave (or oven) for about five minutes. They have a completely different taste than any other way I cook them, the stuffing mix gives them a very good flavor.

Another way to fry fillets is to make a batter of half-and-half flour and corn meal moistened with milk. Make a thick coating on the fillets and drop them into hot oil in deep fat fryer. The fillet inside the crust is moist and will put any fast food fish to shame.