Alan Liere: Not all fish make for good eats

Unfortunately, all fish do not make equally fine table fare. Most people in these parts prefer walleye, but perch, crappie or bluegill are a close second. After that, perhaps smallmouth bass. Throw a salmon into the mix, however, and all bets are off. Wild salmon is said to be especially good for you – Omega 3s, bioactive peptides and all that. It also provides very pretty red fillets – a great main dish when you’re having dinner guests. And the fact it is ridiculously expensive seems to make it more attractive rather than less. I like salmon okay, but I get tired of it very quickly.

I do not care for channel cats from the Snake River because they taste muddy to me. Bullheads from the same water, on the other hand, are delicious. I have a friend who won’t even touch a pike because “They’re so darn slimy.” Good. More for me. He says the same about burbot, which tastes as close to lobster as a non-shell fish can get.

Trout are the most heavily managed fish in the inland waters of Washington because the game department says that’s what anglers want. But no one asked me. True, trout are fun to catch, but I like to eat fish, and trout don’t always taste good. There are, in fact, only a few lakes I know from which the trout are really good eating. This truth was first impressed upon me when I was going to college, living with a roommate in a hovel once used for military housing on the Cheney campus.

One afternoon, my roommate and I drove to a nearby lake and cast miniature marshmallows on slip sinkers from shore for trout. We caught two big, beautiful rainbow. Tired of Top Ramen, we took them home and prepared them for dinner, but the first one tasted like mud and we only got through a few bites. We fed it and the other to my Brittany spaniel, Britt, and went downtown for a hamburger. While we were gone, Britt was confined in a large walk-in closet with a screen for a door.

When we returned to our little house, the mess I discovered sent me retching into the bathroom. The fish had given Britt diarrhea, and to be as tactful as possible, he had “exploded” in that closet. I’d seen Britt eat some nasty stuff with no ill effect. He couldn’t stomach those trout, though, and I never fished the lake near campus again.

For big trout, those in Lake Roosevelt and Rufus Woods Reservoir in eastern Washington are the best tasting in the state, maybe the country. Deer Lake also has good tasting rainbow. Williams and Clear are okay, and Sprague Lake trout aren’t bad if you get them before August.

I eat very few trout these days, but I’ve noticed a lot of other anglers aren’t as picky as I. Britt and I had the same opinion of the fish from that little lake near my college campus, though. It’s still there, and the fishing is superb in the spring, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a good testament for catch and release.