Walleye Are Delicious

The trip was the highlight of my early years.  The river would open up and it was game on. 

Quarter ounce jig heads.  Grub tails.  4 dozen nightcrawlers.  Not 2, not 3, 4 dozen boxes of worms

Running up and down from spot to spot, we caught our fair share.  In those days you couldnt keep any fish between 16 and 20 inches.  The slot it was called, and many 19 3/4 inch went back into the drink in the effort to find that one you could keep over 20 inches.

Those annual trips crystalized my fanaticism for fishing.

And as of 16 years later, I hadn't returned.

There's a million mitigating factors why we hadn't returned.  The river had drastically different flow regimes that for years made it impossible to fish properly

High School Athletics.  College.  My baseball odyssey.  Marriage, children and the like. 

An obsession with fly fishing and away from fishing gear was also firmly at the core of the change.  I had exchanged skirted jigs for cutthroats and 5 weights.

I loved fly fishing within my core.  It defined me and still does to this day.

But still, there was something missing.   Walleye are delicious.

Finally everything aligned and 3 generations of Mills boys ran from spot to spot, hooking fish and handing the rod off to my son to reel in.   It was an amazing day.

We laughed.  We threw gear.  The boat got dirty from worm dirt and fish slime.

And we piled up walleye filets.

There's quite a satisfaction with future meals vacuum packed away in the freezer, ready to share with friends and family.   We miss part of the equation unless you, at times, fish to eat.

Roll the filets in egg, coat in Panko and fry in olive oil.

Good lawd...