Scudley Do Right
Legend
yeah
Puget Sound
- Thread starter Stonedfish
- Start date
Does anyone still catch big mondo herring in Puget Sound? We used to catch them back in the day and referred to them as horse herring.
SF
SF
Great post! Would you mind sharing your herring technique? I'd like to try that. My dad and mom were dutch and we always ate pickled herring
I use a sabiki rig, size 10 or 12, six hook rig to catch baitfish. I tried sabiki rods both commercial and DIY with PVC pipes but they feel like a broomstick. I prefer to use a regular casting rod, line counter reel and store it all rigged up inside a large PVC tube to keep hooks out of harm and ready to deploy. You look for bait in your fish finder, or for feeding birds if the bait is shallow. You drop your sabiki at the depth the bait is at, image below shows bait (#2) between 125 and the bottom, #1 shows the sabiki going down. I only jig for the first hookup, then just wait a few seconds for the sabiki to load, wait too long and a dogfish may destroy your sabiki. #3 shows a sabiki loaded with herring, see next picture.
If you want to keep the herring alive, you can unhook them into a live well, bucket with water that you would have to keep on refreshing, etc. If you want to kill them soon, you can put them on ice, slush of icy seawater, etc.
I have not tried pickling them, I either use them for bait or I grill them whole. If fresh and small you can grill them guts and all, if frozen or larger take out the guts. Whatever you do, dry them well so they turn golden and crispy on the grill on high. Salt them generously. Maybe 3-4 mins per side, should be done right before the catch on fire! This batch I basted them on chimichurri and garnished with parsley, they came out great!
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SF -
Historically PS herring lived to age 9 (those horse herring) but now adult herring mortality has increased significantly. An example of that change, for the Cherry Point population; in the late 1970s that mortality rate was in the 20 to40% range and by the 1990 to 2008 period the average increased to 68%. In 1975 the average age of adult herring was 5.98 and by 2008 that age had declined 2.0. With a younger population one would both a decline in both the annual spawning biomass and abundance stability.
For the last 50 years WDFW (formerly WDF) has collected annual estimates of PS herring "population" spawning biomasses. Historically 5-year update reports. While the underlying data for those reports appear to still be collected those updated reports was last published in 2019.
For those interested in diving deeper in PS herring the
"2016 Washington State Herring Stock Status Report. September 2019" would be good place to start.
Curt