If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em
Screenshot
Press release from the Eel River Pikeminnow Derby:
The Eel River pikeminnow fishing derby is back. The derby is being put on by a collaboration of groups working to restore native fishes in the Eel River, in part by eradicating invasive Sacramento Pikeminnow. We need your help to remove more pikeminnow this summer! From now through August 31st, anyone with a fishing license (or if under 16 years of age, no license is necessary) can go and catch pikeminnow on the Eel for a chance to win up to $400 in cash prizes and do your part to remove these non-native piscivorous (fish-eating) predators.
Pikeminnow were introduced to the Eel River via Pillsbury Reservoir in the late 1970’s. Since then, they have spread to all the forks of the Eel and are remarkably prolific. They make seasonal migrations within freshwater, based on water temperature, prey availability and spawning preferences. In 2018, The Wiyot Tribe and Stillwater Sciences began a focused effort to monitor the pikeminnow population in the South Fork Eel, develop a better understanding of their prey through diet analysis, and test suppression methods. Since then, the collaboration has grown to include CalTrout, UC Berkeley, the Bureau of Land Management, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and TRIB Research, all working together to determine best practices for pikeminnow removal. A recent method has been to install a channel-spanning weir to limit pikeminnow migration into the upper South Fork Eel. On top of the other factors negatively affecting the Eel River such as historic overfishing and logging practices, habitat loss, and impacts from climate change, pikeminnow now have a significant effect on native Pacific Lamprey, coho salmon, Chinook salmon, steelhead and Sacramento Suckers.
The waters open to fishing for the derby are from the mouth of the Van Duzen to the South Fork confluence on the mainstem Eel, and from the mouth of the South Fork to the Humboldt County line (near Piercy) on the South Fork Eel. All current fishing regulations for the Eel River apply for the derby (including no bait, barbless artificial lures only). The prize categories are for most pikeminnow (greater than 6 inches or greater than 12 inches) caught during the contest, biggest fish caught and a drawing for anyone who enters a fish.
We recommend eating your pikeminnow in the form of fried fish cakes, fish balls in noodle soup, fish tacos or smoking them. Don’t believe the common misconception that pikeminnow are inedible. They are delicious, they just need extra care to deal with the y-bones.
For more details on how to enter the derby visit https://tribresearch.org/pikeminnow/
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
Why DEI doesn’t apply here I’ll never know
celebrate the pikeminnow!
There are several million reasons why DEI doesn’t apply here.
Funny how you have to spend $ (license) to help them/us out…
It’s an annual license to fish for anything legal for a year. Not just pike minnows
First rule of pikeminnow etiquette is “Don’t be a Dick”.
Let anybody fish, regardless of politics or badges!
I could even fish next to a provocateur like you! (See first rule)
Heh… Eat ? Don’t mind the bones !
Well some people think goat and sea urchins are delicious too. To each their own.
I tried sea urchin, they are wrong. With goat, the meat has to be raised right, butchered right, and cleaned right. Then pound it, salt, pepper and garlic, dredge in it flour and corn starch. Fry in hot veg oil. Then sometimes the dog will eat it.
When I did farm work in the 70s, the latino migrant families around Ukiah would have big picnics on the river bar. They roasted/barbecued goat on a spit, and it was delicious.
You are right, goat can be delicious. Feeding it to the dog was a poor attempt at humor. BBQ and smoke can add a lot of flavor. My dad used to buy a pillow slip bag of goat jerky from a fellow that lived on the hill behind our house when I was a kid. It soon disappeared around me.
Probably told you it was goat…..goat tastes like venison.
Maybe I didn’t catch it if it was sarcasm, old timers are good at keeping their mouths shut about such things.
I too ate some delicious spit-roasted goat around that time. Take out your Buck knife & cut off a piece. On a farm in Sonoma.
(that was venison from the vineyards)
Taqueria jalos in ukiah had awesome true goat birria on the weekends. I don’t know if they still make it. Next time I’m in ukiah I will pay them a visit.
Barbecued Goat is very good as long as they were raised on a pasture and didn’t eat garbage, poison oak, brush, paint chips, fence boards, or car upholstery. Urchin is also very good and sweet. Humans, just like other mammals, will eat dirt if they are starving and poor, so it’s all subjective. Our brothers to the south sure love goat. After you have seen chicken feet bobbing up and down in a boiling pot on your Italian grandmas stove, you realize peasant food is cheap and tasty. And chicken feet are good for your eyesight. Pickled pigs feet are also incredibly tasty. Italian, Mexican, and Japanese food make life not boring but spicy, salty, sweet, and crunchy. .
We had lots of chicken on the ranch. When butchering time came the chicken legs were saved. They were scalded in boiling water for a short time, The skin slides off and then the claws are trimmed off. They were boiled for hours to make chicken stock. Pork head cheese is a whole other recipe.
Each family had their own standards for making head cheese.
mmmm, headcheese, I remember Safeway sold whole hogsheads back in the 70’s, and my Aunt would make headcheese.
I’m glad that Cal Dept. Fish and Wildlife are finally getting a clue. I’ve often said that there should be a bounty on pikefish. In california there is a rule that you can’t take wildlife unless it is to eat. That’s why they recommend that you eat them. They even give you a fantastic recipe.
Take the fish home and bury them in in your garden and eat the corn that it produces. Just don’t tell Cal DFandG. Hint, hint.
I’ve never heard of the method of using vinegar to remove slime like the video shows. I wonder if that also works for eels. (Congers to the newcomers)
Tried eating one, nothing there, cat wasn’t even interested in it!
Cdfw does in fact encourage people to use the pikeminnow for garden fertilizer. Same for purple urchins on the Sonoma and Mendocino coast. They are trying to eradicate the problem species and we should be thankful if not helpful toward that effort.
You could theoretically use whatever legally-caught fish you want to fertilize your garden. The law in california says “wanton waste” is illegal. Wanton waste might be defined as chucking dead fish back in the river or on the bank to rot. If it’s going into your garden then you are using it, not necessarily wasting. Lots of people use unwanted fish for crab bait, also not a waste. You could also donate these eel-caught pikeminnow to research at the receptacle in piercy.
This article should have a link to the TRIB research website. You will find more info there about the specifics of the derby.
Vinegar works. Just not straight vinegar, more like a 1/4 cup per gallon or similar ratio. Too much will affect the flesh. Lemon juice I’ve used for salmon and gives some flavor to boring Atlantic salmon that’s in stores a lot. And baking soda, if you can believe that. At least for cat fish that are every bit as slimy as eel https://umamidays.com/best-way-remove-catfish-slime/
Oddly enough, somebody in the last 30 years managed to get a patent on a vinegar mixture. It’s since expired so it’s all yours for the renewing. https://patents.google.com/patent/US4951355A/en
From what read these fish due to the lack of salmon are keeping the wildlife fed and alive eagles etc
Citation, please.
All you have to do is spend some time on the river and watch the bald eagles and ospreys fly by with pike in their talons.
Kym had a story about it in 2019: https://kymkemp.com/2019/04/11/the-eel-river-forum-took-a-detailed-look-at-pikeminnow-at-their-march-meeting/
The pikeminnows eat the other fish, including the salmon redds.
So no fishing on the main stem from the south fork confluence up? That’s stupid there’s so many up here
“The waters open to fishing for the derby are from… from the mouth of the South Fork to the Humboldt County line (near Piercy) on the South Fork Eel
Open
The main stem is closed. Doesn’t make sense. But then again, This is the Cal Fish and Wildlife.
I suspect they have a reason. Maybe juvenile salmon, or other species they want protected?
I might understand that except it’s open on the main stem from the south fork to vanduzen confluence
They came to the eel from the potter valley extraction . They used the culvert that feeds the Russian river from the eel to get into the lake then swam down the north fork and into the south fork. Taking water from one source and putting it in another had a massive impact on the eels ecosystem. Pg&e was responsible for this happening and has never been held accountable for it. Why no eels ? Why no salmon? Why no small turtles or blue gill left in the eel…….ask pg&e , they did this
they came into lake pillsbury via a fisherman using live bait. I have caught some huge ones in that lake fishing for bass. they hit repala’s and other minnow like lures. the biggest one was around 30 inches.
Everything is PGE fault. They should probably just disconnect everyone and shut down. Let all residents fend for themselves. That would certainly reduce the population of our state by at least 75%. People can cook over fire, use candles and kerosene lanterns for light, and use wood stoves for heat. Everyone can become a back to the lander, even in the City. It will be a great experiment showcasing human adaptation and survival against all odds. Sounds great to me. Let’s do it!
Yeah, PG&E shuts down in Southwestern Humboldt about three days a week. Does the infrastructure Pillsbury, and Van Arsdale even produce that much power? Any? The issue is the Russian River watershed’s dependence on Eel River water.
At the moment, and for the past year or so, the Potter Valley Project hydroelectric plant has produced exactly zero electricity because of an equipment failure that is, per PG&E, not cost-effective to fix. The plant is supposed to be capable of producing 10 megawatts, about the same as one of those big wind machines, but the maximum output in practice is somewhat less — remember this plant was sized to provide electricity in winter to the town of Ukiah in 1908! The actual output in the last many years has averaged a lot less than that due to a multiplicity of factors. As a producer of energy this project is a joke. PG&E has hung on to it this long ostensibly because it is “green” energy; i.e., not fossil fuel — and undoubtedly because of political pressure.
Hyperbole much?
They may have done it, but we let them. We snoozed and losed.
I’m gonna beat them and then eat them
Kyms first up to show us her catch and cook of pikeminnow
The theory that it was a fisherman using live bait was put to the public by pg&e….covering their ass. The extraction had absolutely nothing in place to stop a fish from swimming up it to the lake from the Russian river when they were discovered. It’s not a difficult travel for a fish but let’s just take pg&e’s word for it ?
When you follow the tribesearch link it says women under 50 and men under 18 should NOT EAT? And then their advisory link is broken…
…Warning: It is recommended men over 18 and women over 50 eat no more than one serving of pikeminnow per week. All other groups should abstain from eating this fish. See the full fish advisory report here.
I noticed that ominous warning. I wonder if it’s a vague catch all… Poorly worded, and incomplete? Mercury warnings are usually aimed at pregnant women. PROP 65warnings are so ubiquitous as to be completely ineffective. But this doesn’t say lead or Mercury…
Do pike minnows bio accumulate COCAINE!?
No, neither do fish off the coast of Brazil, but the fish off the coast of Brazil have tested positive for COCAINE. Haven’t heard of any pike minnows testing positive.
Here’s a link to a statewide fish advisory that contains info and recommendations on mercury. If you search for pikeminnow in this document you will see the details. We definitely hope to get some fish tested from the Eel River soon. Pikeminnow from Whiskey town lake have been shown to have high mercury content. We don’t know for Eel River fish, but I think it is best to proceed with caution and follow the state wide recommendations (men over 18 and women over 50 eat no more than one serving of pikeminnow per week. All other groups should abstain)
https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/advisories/fishadvisorystatewideriversreport2022.pdf
Article about eels in the river Thames!
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/cocaine-in-the-river-thames-is-another-problem-eels-don-t-need-says-expert-a4049086.html
I read that article too, thanks.
The “No” is regarding bio-accumulation. Bio-accumulation means the levels build up over time, which is not the case. The COCAINE passes through the system; it doesn’t build up like mercury and other heavy metals. Those are stored away in tissue by the liver.
I know. Just havn fun. There’s no cocaine in the South fork anyway, so har de har.
Seriously though, a pike minnow in the Eel should be exposed to way less mercury than a Pike Minnow in say, Clear Lake. Clear Lake is a basin in a cinnabar rich watershed. The ore was mined around Clear Lake to supply mercury to poison the Sierra Nevada, and Trinity Gold Country. In any case, a small young pike minnow would accumulate less than an old big one. Anchovies and sardines don’t accumulate as much heavy metals as the bigger predators that eat the little fish.