Hookin’ And Cookin’ – Rainbow Trout With Capers Olives And Tomatoes

By

Adam Baratz

Winter is finally over – YES!  Once I start catching trout it finally hits me that the frigid days are in the rear view and I’m allowed to be human again. You know, human, like I can leave the house, not be afraid of a -30 wind chill – which legit happened this past winter. I have made a promise to myself that one day I’ll never experience another winter but I have to put up with it a little while longer until all my ducks are in a row.

 Springtime trouting is a way for me as a fisherman to get rid of the residual rust that accumulates in my fishing “abilities”.  Cue our lovely government to supply a few hundred thousand man made fish into most local ponds, lakes and rivers.  Nevertheless, they put up fairly decent fight for freshwater and taste pretty darn good.

 My inclination is for saltwater game fish – especially the striped bass and bluefish.  They are packed with flavor, put up a hell of a fight and at times can be challenging.  I guess as challenging as a creature with a pea sized brain can be. But you would be surprised the swearing and temper tantrums a 35 year old can throw after being eluded by such an intellectual contender. At the time of writing this article the striped bass and bluefish hadn’t shown up yet; trout, largemouth and smallmouth bass entertain me until the main event. Just this past week striped bass have started to make their usual migration up the east coast and my days of fresh water fishing will be fewer.

 My first trip of the year yielded one little brook trout and and a fairly good sized largemouth bass of 5lbs.  For the New England area a 5lb largemouth is a great fish, maybe not in the south but we take what we can get.I don’t like eating largemouth so I threw it back but I sure as hell kept that trout. And obviously texted my fishing buddy to rub it in that he had to work and I was bangin’ on the fish. I cooked it in the same manner that was done in this recipe but used sun dried tomatoes instead of olives. Both work great.

 The next week I caught the fish from the pictures…..

My fishing friend Sam came over for a mini fishing road trip and we made the trek down to Plymouth Massachusetts (land of the pilgrims) in search of elusive man made trout. It was a beautiful day to start, sun shining and not much cloud cover.  The closer we got to Plymouth the more the temp dropped and the clouds increased. It literally dropped 15 degrees by the time we got to there, which was a bit disconcerting but luckily it didn’t get too cold.

Before we finally got to the fishing spot we stopped at a convenience store (Cumberland Farms) to grab a snack.  I have no idea what possessed me to get a slice of pepperoni pizza, but I did.  In my head I thought wow this is going to be the worst slice of pizza in my life, but I’m eh hungry. My predictions were pretty accurate, should have got a granola bar. As luck would have it I got the better snack between the two of us.  Sam got a buffalo chicken sandwich, that I kid you not, smelled like pure vomit.  I literally had to open my window to avoid the foul stench.

I decided we should try a new pond since we always end up at the same place and change is good. With my head out the window in fear of inhaling the buffalo chicken vomit sandwich, we finally arrived at our destination. As we pulled up we both realized that we had already fished there and weren’t huge fans. We only stayed for a few minutes and then went to our usual place.

When we got to the spot du jour, both of us walked down in anticipation for one of the first fishing trips of the year. Aka we have the mentality of a 10 year old when it comes to fishing and were power walking. I’m so bad that when I need to wake up at an ungodly hour like 3AM I get up at 2 naturally and lay in bed for an hour because I’m so amped to get on the water. Anyway, we walk down to the pond and plot our course to hit the area where Sam caught a huge tiger trout last year. We fished our way there as we walked and I spotted a little rainbow trout swimming in the shallows, which got the blood pumping a tad.  I couldn’t get it to bite but clearly a good sign of what was to come.

When we came around the corner there was a cut in the pond that led to a smaller pond which is about 3 ft deep. To our disappointment it was impossible for us to cross over without getting drenched. Sam was determined to get across and roll up his pants to walk over. I talked him down off the ledge and we turned around to concentrate on the real estate we had just walked by.

We set up camp and within a few casts Sam was whooping it up as I heard line coming off his reel – he had a fish on. When he brought it in we took a few pix and he struggled to get the hook out. Me being the entrepreneur that I am, ran over to his spot and casted my lure as he was out of the game unhooking his trout. He may have called me a son of a bitch when I stole his spot, I can not confirm or deny that at this time. What I can confirm is that the first cast I caught a nice trout.

The day continued, I caught another fish and we both lost a few.  Regardless of the number of fish caught or size, we had a great time, memories were made and it was clear that another fishing season is upon us.