Not Eating It!

   If it seems that I am bombarding the blog with far too many fish tales, it is merely because that is what I am doing at the moment...fishing.  When the fish are biting, we have a tendency to linger on the pier far longer than other times.  Here on the Bayou, we look at fishing as a means of getting a meal not as a sport.  When fish are biting, we fill the freezer for when times are lean.  Seafood of all sorts are caught, cleaned and frozen for later use.  While others look at our fishing trips as "playtime", we look at them as a necessity.  If we wish to eat seafood year round, we better catch it when it is here.  That said, I do draw a line at just what I eat from the Bay.  Nope, I will not eat the catfish, nary a stingray will cross the lips nor will I dine upon gar.  Well, maybe none of these.  If I was starving, I suppose that I would not be so picky but with seafood plentiful, I can make choices.

  Just this morning, my line started zipping out from the reel.  Thinking I had a large redfish on the hook, I snapped the pole back to lodge the hook and started to reel in the line.  Geez!  This thing was huge!  As the reel turned, the drag buzzed loudly as the line was being pulled in the opposite direction.  Still not being the strongest after the bout of illness, I called on Mark to "catch my fish"!  He took the pole and landed the monster with no problems.  Nope, it was not a redfish but rather a three foot long gar.  Well, now.  That was not going to feed too many folks at the Little Bayou House!  Not at MY house anyway!

  While gar meat is supposed to be edible and some say quite tasty, it is not something that I feel like tackling.  A gar is covered with diamond shaped scales that are interlocked to form a sort of armor.  Cleaning the fish is most difficult and, to my way of thinking, too much work when there are nice trout willing to take my bait.  Plus, the gar roe is poisonous.  Nope...not happening.  I will pass.  Let someone else munch out on the weird fish.  I will stick with what I know!