Trout tasty: don't be too tempted

Taupo Times, Volume 23, Issue 56, 16 July 1974, Page 5

Trout tasty: don't

be too tempted

It's high time the trout is dellcious myth was exploded. People have been saying for hundreds of years that trout is a delicacy. Whether or not you really think so usually depends on whether or not you fish. Chancfes are that if you don't know one end of a fishing rod from the other you will think you love trout. After all, you can't buy it in the fish shop, can you? So if you know a fisherman you will probably shower enthusiasm on him for any trout he brings along. "Ooh, trout!" is the common reaction. "Isn't it a beauty! Are you sure you can spare it? Have you got enough for yourself? Sueh reactions are food and drink to the fisherman.

Nine times out of 10 he won't care much for trout himself. But as long as other people convince him they love trout he'll keep bringing them modestly and generously along. After all, we all thrive on other people's good opinions of us. If their appreciation is salted with praise for our skill and protestations of over generosity on our part, so much the better for our egos. Most anglers, I find, don't like trout. If they are at least moderately successful fishermen they will have eaten trout on and off for many years. They will have found it so delicately flavoured that, to draw any satisfaction at all from the flesh, they will know that all kinds of

additional flavourings are" essential, notably onions, tomatoes, vinegar, wine, peppers, cucumber, parsley and other herbs, and mayonnaise. You will find that anglers who still commonly eat trout choose only the best conditioned fish for themselves, the ones with deeply pink or reddish flesh — which tells them that their quarry has been dining royally and at length on crustaceans. They give the other ones away — the fish varying down in condition from palest pink to pure slab white. And yet trout starved friends and relations who receive such fish fall over themselves to accept and eat them. And still remain very much on, good terms with the fisherman. All because they persist in preserving the fallacy that because the fish is normally unprocurable, and therefore a delicacy, a gift of trout is food fit for the gods. Now, whether it's baked whole, fully garnished, in its own juices, whether it's split and buttered and salted and grilled straight out of the water, whether it's fried, canned, bottled, soused, or smoked, trout is a grossly over-rated dish, like many other delicacies — so-called because it's rare, or expensive, or both. If so many anglers consider this true they should ask themselves why this should not be considered true by others. They only give them away to people well disposed towards them. So, naturally, only pleasure is the obvious outcome of the gift. I wonder how many people among the recipients come to regard trout with the same. indifference that so many anglers regard the cooked fish themselves? Sadly, these people can never reveal their indifference, for if it is true that most people don't look gift horses in the mouth, then it is also true that we are, on the whole, a polite sort of animal. Of course, some anglers haven't progressed from

-round about the stone age. Either because of economic pressures on their lives, or because of an obsessional need for recognition, they must, as hunters, bring home fish for the pot, individual or tribal. Way back fishermen became anglers when they were no longer compelled to catch fish in order to survive. The outwitting of individual fish for pleasure, rather than the netting or spearing or baiting of many hooks to help fill empty bellies, turned the hunt into a recreation. But there are many fishers, as opposed to anglers, still around. Is it an indictment of the welfare state that some fishermen — usually exceptionally skilled — still rely on their talents to keep their families well fed? Or at least fed inexpensively. What's all this leading up to? A plea for a guarantee of worthwhile angling for all the anglers of the future. Make it known that the trout is a grossly over-rated delicacy. Turn your fish back. Turn back especially those legal but immature, beautifully conditioned hen fish. Keep the occasional heavyweight by all means. Have a care for the future, for the fishing of our children and our children's children. The more we can conserve now, the more certain we make an angling future for those to come. Read the overseas fishing magazines of this day and age, particularly those published in the United States, and you will be impressed by the repeated references to fish carefully returned to the water; waters from which it is illegal to take fish — although the angler is allowed to catch them — streams in which only barbless hooks are permitted, in order to minimise damage to hooked fish and allow them to be returned the more quickly. Don't ever believe that our fishing in New Zealand could not be endangered^ The process is inevitable. We can do much to slow it down.