On Shore Lunch 2

So we hussle it back to the camp because finally, everyone else is hungry. The fish have been sitting along the boat in the water on a stringer and are cool and fresh as we bring everything onto the dock. My father begins to look through his bag for his trusty filet knife. I bring some things up to the cabin as he sets up our lunch on a bench expressly desinged for gutting and fileting fish outside in the midst of fresh air, lush foliage and a small cloud of mosquitos peppered with giant biting horseflies. My ankles begin to itch again as the entire morning, those horseflies were feasting on them. it feel like someone pushes a lighter into your skin after they help it up for the token ballad at a rock concert. I decide to kill everyone I see.

ok back to the guts.

Chris and I crowd the bench as dad flops the first walleye on the bench. With expert skills, he starts his cuts, first against the gill, then around. He mentions something about 'cheek meat' and how good it is so that's why he'sgoing in against the gill. This is a different operation entirely than fileting a trout. I'd be good at that as my great Uncle taught me once how to filet a trout with one cut of a knife and by hand the rest of the way. With walleye, you go against the ribs, around the spine, slide the knife along the skin, deposit the nice filet somewhere clean, flip, repeat. The dorsal fin of the walleye only manages to stab him 3 or four times. It hurts. We each have a few spots on our hands with small red dots where one flopped around after gasping and twisting with the ridiculous amount of oxygen in it's lungs.

**shit. I forgot to give a PETA warning here. Sorry. It could be noted that out of probably 400 or so fish the entire trip, the only ones that die are the ones we eat. I doubt this will make PETA hate us less. We are conservationists in hell, then.**

The bench has this great little square in the middle of it's surface cut out so you can just shove the guts down into a bucket and prepare a clean surface for the next fish. By clean, I mean with the fresh guts mostly in the bucket and the flies staved off. Eventually, after dad finishes, I grab some water from the lake to wash the table off. The weathered surface is neither smooth nor finished enough to endure a washrag or anything like it. I'm sure this would worry most people but I know we're going to fry these things up in batter and oil a plenty with enough potatoes and onions to kill a pony.

My uncle has things rolling in the kitchen already. When I was young I remember visiting him at the restaurant where he worked. He was dating a waitress there who eventually became my aunt and gave birth to the cousin at my left. Good cooking is wafting throughout the kitchen as I get all the cornmeal and flour together for the fish batter. Everyone is pitching in on the rest of the meal as well as the table. The cupboards are stocked with plates and cups so that part is easy enough. Within half an hour, the fish is done, the potatoes crips and creamed corn is bubbling. At this point, I can't honestly remember the last time I ate creamed corn. It would have to have been sometime around age 8. Since then, have managed to avoid it, but it's not bad. I would have almost shared the guts with the gulls at that point anyway, with a little batter and onion of course.

Fake shore lunch is served.