Independence on a 5-Acre Farm

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WHITE FISH

If the homesteader wishes to catch white fish he has three courses open to him: hand lining, long-lining and trawling. Hand lining is fun, but only occasionally very productive. Long-lining can be extremely productive of such things as conger eel, hake, cod and codling, haddock and whiting. Trawling is the only method by which you are likely to catch soles, and any quantity at least of plaice or other flat fish. You can buy little beam trawl nets from Bridport Gundry: they sell one small enough to be towed behind a 20-foot open boat with a Seagull engine. You can make up a long line yourself, but I recommend that you buy swivel hooks. Professional long lines may have a thousand hooks or more on them, but if you have a hundred you will catch quite a lot of fish—that is provided there are any fish there. The usual thing is to shoot them at night and pick them up in the early morning. In the summer you probably don't get much but dog fish (marvellous for pig food) but in the winter you should get other fish. I cannot go into detail about either trawling or long-lining here, but there are sure to be professional fishermen near you somewhere, and if you do as they do you will fare all right. There is a very good book, InshoreFishing by Stan Judd, published by Fishing News. I have been long-lining with Mr. Judd and we caught half a ton of conger eels so he seems to know his job.

Now for preserving your white fish when you have caught them. Flat fish are best put in the deep freeze where they freeze quite well, but don't keep them too long: perhaps three months is long enough. Everything loses its flavour in time in the deep freeze.

Thick fish, such as coddling, haddock and whiting, can be salted. Split the bigger fish, such as cod, and rip out the backbone except the tail which you keep as a handle. Pile in dry salt and let the juice run away (compare with oily fish such as herring, where you do not let the juice run away but leave the fish in their "pickle"). After a few days with small fish, but 15 days with big cod, pull the fish out of the salt and expose on racks to the air and the sun—but not to the rain. A more scientific way is the Gaspe' cure. Fill a tub with 7 lbs. salt (if it be winter—9 lbs. if summer) and 100 lbs. split fish. Leave in brine for 48 to 72 hours depending on size of fish. Pull them out and stack them for six hours. Dry in sun and wind.

This sort of fish will keep indefinitely. You can cook it how you like but you should soak it for at least 36 hours before you do so or you will have a thirst that the waters of Niagara will scarcely quench.

Smoke haddocks, after half an hour in brine, for a few hours in cool smoke, or hot smoke to make "smokies".

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