Yo Jimmar,

How happy I am to see your message, because as much as I rave to my friends about fresh Quetico fillets (or chunks or shreds, i.e. sometimes we make fish stew and gumbo, for variety), I was tempted to post a venison-related message.

What's better: Walleys or smallies cooked over a fire of pine coals on the edge of a lake in the north woods, while watching the northern lights and listening to the loons?

Or peppered venison loin seared over a fire of black locust coals on the edge of the dark Kentucky woods, while watching the Leonids and listening to the coyotes and an owl?

At this moment, I cannot say.

And sorry for digressing from the thread, but after a week of sleeping out and savoring deer cooked a dozen different ways, with my hands curled around a rifle and a field-dressing knife, the paddle and fillet knife seem distant memories.

Oh, and quickly:

Re: "properly aging" the venison. More sins have been committed against a vension carcass than are in the Bible. How many non-hunters have been turned off venison because the animal wasn't shot properly and the meat properly afterward?

Re: how we cook fish. Another in the group, he the fish-maestro, has assumed all fish-cooking responsibilities over the years. The rest of us would not presume to get in his way. But we typically pan fry (often for a sandwich lunch) tho sometimes we poach (the fillets not the game animals). And yes, sometimes a stew with rice. And baked once or twice in foil.

-- kypaddler