All Hail the Conquering Fish Slayer

We went, we camped, he fished, I gutted and cleaned. And it was good. HM did a great job and I am so grateful to the friends who took us and taught us (and brought their bigger tarp and over-all more prepared camping setup). The huge neon yellow mid calf-length rain slicker (with the extra safe reflector stripes) got me a few snickers while setting up camp but, as the rain continued, the snide comments ("Hey! Did you bring us fish sticks?") turned to "That sure looks dry". 

I now have eight beautiful red salmon fillets in my freezer, three more curing into lox in the fridge, and 4 little baggies of roe, also cured. Another pair of fillets is waiting for Bryan to pick them up. The roe with some dilled labneh is really heavenly. Making bagels in anticipation of eating the lox on Saturday is a strong probability. Fresh bagels, homemade lox, local tomatoes, homemade labneh, thin sliced red onions, and a sprinkling of capers....sounds like it might be worth every bit of the work! A bloody mary on the side might also be in order.

There were great lessons learned for next year too. Buy gear this winter out of season. Another pair of waders and boots, a tent or two, nets, another cabana tent, a cook stove,  good sleeping bags and most important of all: at least one of those little stand-up tents probably made for solar showers. The porta-potties were vile, in addition to being kind of a hike. With one of those nifty little shower tents you could set up a honey bucket and skip the whole experience. You could have a place to pull of the wet nasty stuff when you come out of the water. You could actually use it as a shower tent. It looked silly in the sporting goods store but I think I get it now. Sleeping in the back of the Suburban worked pretty well for us but I can't imagine doing it without the memory foam pad. I'm the kind of girl who thinks that roughing it should certainly include an aerobed, at minimum.

The other big lesson: small boys can never, ever pack enough socks or clean clothes and it is likely futile to even try. But more socks are always a good plan.