Ling a Ding Ding!

Welcome to Fish Week on the Gael Glen Farm Blog! I'm guest blogging this week at the request of the usual author to (in my opinion) let her ideas queue up for future posts as she isn't really giving me a choice on this.

Today's entry is about a mysterious and unique critter living in the depths of the Ottawa River.  This is a bizarre and unusually ugly animal that usually keeps deep but comes up in the winter to prepare to spawn.  It looks like the bizarre lovechild between a catfish and an eel, has a face only a mother could love, and has the terrible tendency of tying itself up in lines, wrapping around your wrist and leaving slime all over the ground when you do pull one up.

They feed at night and usually signal the end of the walleye run in the area.

If you dare take it home to eat, you have a bit of a gross job cleaning it up (the fish is surprisingly full of guts -- more so than fish in the bass or walleye family), but the resulting flesh, cooked in a certain way, has a striking resemblance to lobster meat and is very tasty.

This is the guy I caught Friday!  He was HUGE!

I've seen all kinds of videos online and old fish stories about nailing one to a tree, cutting around the head and pulling skin off with pliers   I'm still cleaning them in the usual way though -- no trees around here to nail them to.

Yes, we are talking about the burbot, commonly called "ling cod" in these parts though this is technically incorrect.  This fish is in the cod family as you can tell by it's single chin whisker.

I keep burbot that I catch, clean them and save them for "lobster night".  This is usually after the ice fishing season is over and we have a small feast on burbot that I've poached in salt water and dipped in garlic butter.

Another interesting fact....   The scientific name for the fish is Lota Lota.  I wonder if they're suggesting lots of guts or lots of fins... or lots of slime...  anyway.

DELICIOUS, even if they're ugly.