Monday morning at Mud

[Freeeedom]

My supplies of vacuum packed, smoked tailor fillets in the freezer are getting critically low, so I headed for Mud this morning in a slight chop, hoping to rectify the situation. Arrived at Mud just before 7.30 and started trolling my usual spots. By 11.30 when I quit I had 17 nice tailor and a cormorant. The tailor were all legal, the best going 46cm. There was a steady run of fish without there ever being a really hot bite. I'm not sure of the legal size for a cormorant so I released it - even though it tried to bite me constantly throughout the struggle to untangle and unhook it. Still a slight chop on the way home but nothing to worry about. Nice mornings work! - the smoker will get a workout tomorrow.
Cheers Freeeedom

[Cheech]

Excellent result. Slow trolling pillies? I have thought about targeting tailor when the tides are not suitable for my snapper marks. After reading this, I think I will have to do more than just think about it.

[Tickleish]

gotta love smoked tailor, nice effort makes me jealous.

[Neckrofish]

nice feed of tailor. well done

[tropicrows]

Never done any trolling for tailor, I normally anchor and burley up and drift baits down. So I am just guessing here, is it much like trolling for mackerel weather your using lures or trolled dead baits. ????

[tropicrows]

And yes that's is a nice feed well done.

[Horse]

A very nice feed there Freeeedom. Do they come out OK after freezing when you smoke them?

[Freeeedom]

Cheech - they were all caught on trolled metal lures

Tropicrows - same technique produces schoolies in the bay in summertime

Horse - they come up real well. Great to eat cold with a bit of cream cheese on a cracker biscuit or to turn into seafood mousse. All the rellies love them - I don't know how they eat them but they always come back for more. I like to use them in a kedgiree - fantastic!

Here's my day's work ready for the freezer!

Cheers Freeeedom

[chief]

Nice work mate, are they schooled up or spread over a large area ?

[Freeeedom]

No - quite scattered Chief. You troll over one area and get a fish so you go over the same area a few times and get nothing. Then you get a fish somewhere else, and so it goes. During the whole session I got two double hookups ( I troll two lures at different distances behind the boat) but the rest of them were singles. I got the feeling that there was a school of fish (or a couple of schools) but that they were on the move all the time and you got a fish when you caught up with them again.
Cheers Freeeedom

[BayDog]

Do you marinate your fish before smoking? i usually make up a brine of salt and brown sugar and pepper and marinate overnight then smoke. I would like to hear how you do it if you dont mind.

Thanks

Simon

[Freeeedom]

BayDog - I make a brine using about 400g of salt, 200g of brown sugar to 3 litres of water. The fillets are marinated in this for about 3 hours - I think overnight would be a bit too long for a brine of this strength; too much salt would get into the flesh. The purpose of the brining is to draw a lot of the water out of the fillet as well as to add a bit of flavour. After brining the fillets are dried as much as possible - air drying would be the best but I'm too impatient to wait a few more hours before starting the smoking process, so I put a layer of paper towel over newspaper and lay the fillets on it. After a few minutes I turn them over and then press new paper towel onto both sides to get them as dry as I can. I then prepare about half a cup of 1/2 soy sauce, 1/2 water with a tablespoon of brown sugar dissolved in it. I place the fillets on the smoking rack and brush them lightly with this mix. This gives more salt, colour and flavour (from the soy) and the sugar caramelises as the fish smokes (giving extra colour). I then grind fresh black pepper onto the fillet, which sticks to the marinade. When the fish is half done I (carefully) turn the fillets over and brush the other side with the soy, water sugar mix. After the fish is nicely coloured on both sides I let it cool on paper towel again - it's moist and delicious at this stage but you don't want any loose liquid coming out of it if you are going to vacuum pack it. When its totally cold and dry you'll find it has shrunk by more than one third due to the amount of water it has lost due to the brining and the cooking - but this only intensifies the flavour. I then vacuum pack each fillet separately and freeze them. I find they are still perfectly good after six months or more.
Cheers Freeeedom

[BayDog]

Thanks very much for the tips.