Poseidon's Brine

Greeks intense devotion to eat whole fish
is only surpassed for their ardor of curvy
belly dancers—at the end of the meal. You
know, around bedtime?

Since La Jolla is never a sure thing, I sometimes fish
the odds in Dana for bass.

Dana offers endless bass-filled structure north,
south, east and west. I love to fish fast-paced, action
filled crank baits. But sometimes, it don’t always work.

Dana waters have warmed up rapidly this spring.
67F usually leads to upper column activity, and throwing
crank baits over structure can cover a lot of ground. That helps
locate feeding bass.

But the signs weren’t there. No bird activity, and no puddles
of fin baits and certainly no boils. With the full moon, there
was plenty of current, and we’re definitely at the pre-spawn
staging, so: What’s the pattern?

The first bass I caught was full of baby anchovies. Since I couldn’t
see any chovies, they must of been hiding for their lives down below.

I had some swimbaits to match-the-hatch. But I was looking for quality,
not quantity. So I added an inline weight to a crank bait that
looks like a baby bass. Them big bass don’t like competition.

Almost limited out, kept only the perfect sized ones. Here’s the
biggest of the day. Way too old to eat. But its smaller buddies
got a chance to see first hand, how to be eaten, then digested,
while enjoying belly dancers.

[jorluivil]

Damn that looks good!

[jsigone]

I like your style to cook the fish, plating looks awesome

[mtnbykr2]

OMG Yani...it's dinner time and I haven't eatin yet...recipe for the fly cut calico please....

[driftwood]

Thats restaurant quality greek at its best!

Even with the best fishfinder money can buy... all you catch is calicos?
We need to talk!

[Yakin]

Man that is an amazing catch!!
And X2 on that restraunt quality cooking!!

This one is easy. Simply gut, gill, scale and
paritially cut the backbone from the inside to
butterfly the fish wide open. Prep with salt,
pepper, olive oil inside and out. Stuff with herbs,
lemon/orange slices and cook.

In this case I roasted the fish in the oven on a roasting rack.
425F for 10-15mins. Or put the thing over the coals.

Drench with lemon and enjoy! Don't forget to suck all
the goodness out of the head. It's the best part.

[lamb]

Master chef with his art

[Bennyblanco]

Thanks yani,my stomach was grueling as I was reading your recipe.can you post a picture of the lure you were using.

[h2ofishfo]

thats alot of rice but look delish !!!

Thanks for sharing, looks awesome

Guys, thanks a million. But seriously, all this stuff
is simply gut driven.

The butterfly techinque. Once you gut and clean the
fish, take your knife and start from the fish's butt hole
with a cut to its tail. Spread the meat apart. Now take a long heavy
chef's knife and lay it on the fish's backbone. Put some weight
into it, but only enough to paritially crack it. This allows you
to fully split the fish wide open.

This is just a presentation techinque, but, it does allow you more
room for different stuffing. Like, maybe, crab meat during the
cooking process or a cold cabbage salad added after the fish is cooked??

have fun...

[mtnbykr2]

Tune in tomorrow to see what Yani cooks up next, thanks for all the great
recipes, and techniques....