Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello,
When I was a child, I remember a short trip to the shore of Lake Michigan (very large lake in northern US). It was a bright moonlit night in early spring, and we waded in with a 5 gallon bucket and a large hand net with a fine mesh. I held the bucket while my father dipped his net. The water was very cold! There were many people like us - up and down the beach as far as I could see in either direction - it was a festival kind of atmosphere. In about 10 minutes, we had a couple of gallons of minnows. We poured off the water and added couple of gallons of ice. Most of them were about 1 1/2 inches long. The largest was about 3 inches long.

Returning home, we rolled the little minnows in cornmeal and garlic salt, and fried them in bacon grease. I am now 50 years old, and those little minnows still remain the best tasting fish I have ever eaten! The larger ones were gutted first, but all were fried with their heads, scales and tails on - and they were wonderful (bones and all). Some of the larger fish contained roe, and the adults in the group enjoyed that fried by itself.

We moved away from the lake and my father has since passed on. Were these shad? Are they related to the gizzard and threadfin shad we can grow here in the S.E. US? When I search the forums and google for shad recipes, most of the recipes I find are for catfish bait.

Do you think it is possible to develop a market for gourmet clupeidae?

Berry

I don't and don't know anybody who does here, curious cause coonasses eat anything But I do know of people who earn a living shad dipping with dip nets and sell to bait shops. They are schooling fish and you can tell a shad dipper just by looking at him... he has one arm 2 or 3 x the size of the other They must breed like crazy cause they are everywhere and it is the best bait for crawfish pots!
If you like them they seem to be very hardy and live in ditches and canels that most fish would die in. Probably bullet proof in AP. I think they eat plant debris, or detritus like mullets so food should be cheap.

I grew up in Michigan.
I've never experienced what you are talking about I'm only in my mid 30's though and we didn't live right on lake Michigan. I think if such things were still going on when I was a kid, my mom would have insisted we experience it. Mom also grew up in Michigan and her dad was quite the fisherman, I'll have to ask here later if she knows what kind of fish those would have been.

This is the shad I'm familiar with:

It was the bacon fat that made them taste so good:) .
My favourite fish recipe wraps bacon around fish fillets ,, YUMMMMM

In new england (new hampshire) we used to call them "smelt" go out at night in the shallows with a light, the light would bring them in and we just netted hundreds at a time

Interesting. Apparently these are smelt, normally an anadromous salt-water fish, introduced from the Atlantic.

In recent decades, the populations appear poor, possibly due to zebra mussels competing for plankton. And our dear protective state govs are concerned about them spreading into more waters, so don't want them transported (at least in Wisconsin. They sure look tempting, though, if one could collect a lot of fertilized eggs at a spawning.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/100-199/nb105.htm
http://www.ifishillinois.org/profiles/l ... smelt.html