MOLDY CHUM

The Salted Minnows are Deadly!

The Most Important Fish in the Sea

Regionally, they're known as bunkers, pogies or fat-backs... but they're officially called menhaden.

Today, one company-Omega Protein-has a monopoly on the menhaden "reduction industry." Every year it sweeps billions of fish from the sea, grinds them up, and turns them into animal feed, fertilizer, and oil used in everything from linoleum to health-food supplements.

The massive harvest wouldn't be such a problem if menhaden were only good for making lipstick and soap. But they are crucial to the diet of bigger fish and they filter the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, playing an essential dual role in marine ecology perhaps unmatched anywhere on the planet. As their numbers have plummeted, fish and birds dependent on them have been decimated and toxic algae have begun to choke our bays and seas. 

Via: AlterNet LINK

In Japanese cuisine, salmon is considered to give good head

Due to over fishing in the seas of Southeast Asia the fish head, that Asian culinary delight, may soon be an endangered species.

And with fish heads, what you see is what you get. If the eyes are pink, it means the head is fresh. If it's glassy and grey, give it to the cat.

LINK

Previously on Moldy Chum

Perfect on Fish!

Quite possibly the world's greatest invention. Via:Citizen Rain LINK

Weird Things People Eat Around the World

LINK  Via: Gadling

Hook and Cook

Catch your own lunch fresh from the waters of Loch Awe at Ardanaiseig, a luxury 16-bedroom country house hotel on the West Coast of Scotland. This summer the hotel is launching Hook ‘n’ Cook, offering both novice and experienced fishermen the opportunity to enjoy a morning’s fishing on the loch, which is renowned for its unusually large trout, followed by an al fresco lunch on the lawn cooked by the hotel’s award-winning chef with the morning’s catch.  LINK

Fish Soup

Actually a carved radish.

Chum Spread

Our friend Andy found this on the internets.

Make an expedition to the nearest river full of spawning chum and catch the darkest male you can find, when you can tweak there body and hear the backbone dislodge from the muscle, you've found your keeper!

 
Now place your prize in the backseat of a 74' lincoln, and let "sun dry" for a full week.

 
When the fish reaches the consistency of warm butter and is spreadable with a dull butter knife it is ready.

Enjoy spread thickly over bagels and toast as an early morning breakfast full of energy, or for a pick me up any time of the day!

Moldy Chum Fillets?

Ass Hooked Whitey had a Chum related post today.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is sponsoring the Chum Salmon Recipe Challenge.

LINK

Lake owners have bellyful of pelicans

 

We would frequently see these beautiful large birds on the South Platte in Wyoming, we love the fact they are turning some real estate developers vision of a private lake into a trout buffet.

Today, on a small lake in this small town, just as they've done every day since they arrived a few years ago, the white pelicans will be trout fishing. This ruffles the feathers of the owners of private Ice Lake. They're real-estate developers who buy the live trout for $2 a pound to stock their lake and are trying to sell lakefront homesites - a 3-acre lot sells for $275,000 - to fly-fishermen and other lovers of the outdoors. Via The Denver Post LINK

Steelhead Red

The 2004 Quivira Steelhead Red is the best in a long while. A blend, in order of percentages, of grenache, zinfandel, syrah and mourvèdre, it's a very well-balanced red wine with spice and pepper and undertones of raspberry. I think the technical term for this wine is "yummy."   LINK