Thread: Getting back to living off the land.....

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

eels are neat critters....still give me the heebee geebees if encounter them while in water fishing.....used to gut rabbits at same wee bridge and after a week the eels would be waiting when I came back from shooting.... Ive pulled eels in on line and they were longer than fence post,not stressed at all so I cut line happily...no way was I putting hand near that mouth. Ive tried some smoked and its good...but I just cant get past the slimey eel thing...same with possum...

Unfortunately as a youngster me and my mate decimated them with line and spear and gay abandon. I console myself that we did no where near as much damage as the blokes who trapped the waterways clean to send containers of live NZ eels to Asia. We did occasionally eat them. Over a camp fire wrapped in wild mint or skinned and pan fried at home. We should have filleted them for pan frying but instead steaked them with bone in. Too much bone . Over the camp fire the slime simply cooks off with the crackled skin. The meat was a bit earthy tasting but delicious. I learned as an adult fly-fisherman cooking brown trout in particular that to avoid the muddy taste you either fillet before cooking or you dry bake. If you wet cook them with the skin on that is where the muddy taste comes from and it pervades the flesh.