This week Patrick and I had the opportunity to fish on Little River in the Smoky Mountains after work, and it was beautiful. We picked a promising stretch of river, and fished together, him on the holes to the right side, I to the left. We caught bunches of fish. I was lucky enough to look up just as he set the hook into a fish upstream of me that turned out to be glorious. I watched him play the fish, and was at his side shortly after he landed it. More than a foot long and stunning, this rainbow trout was a true Smoky Mountain trophy. Unfortunately, the hook had been set deep in the mouth of the fish, and it was bleeding, so Patrick, still a bit traumatized, worked on releasing the hook, as I proceeded to fantasize about how it would end up in my belly. We have caught a couple of hundred trout in the Smokies this year between us, and we have released them all. I even got two whoppers in the hole beneath Patrick's earlier this spring, it could have been one of those fish. This one did not have a very good chance of surviving after a tough hooking, and I do not regret killing this beautiful fish.
A salt and pepper coat later, the fish was grilled until the skin was crispy and the flesh still wet but falling off the bone. I am a sucker for skin, as most of you know from some lechon/salmon "only the skin is important" experiences with me, but the flesh once the skin was pulled away was also divine. Beautiful at every point: alive, dead, gutted, powdered in Korean black pepper and Utah salt (pink and glistening), and presented whole on the plate. What a glorious night.
Note: Those are wild muscadine grapes surrounding the fish. They lined nearly the entire stretch of river and were small tough skinned and heavily seeded, but they had a delicious sweet burst of juice at each pop. Patrick, ceaselessly teasing, called me Huckleberry as I popped grapes while walking streamside with my fishing pole, and found the name for this memorable stretch of river.
