We tried the whole fish trick this summer on McDougall Lake.  We had a nice smallmouth that we wanted for dinner, but didn't have an extra pan to cook it in, so we gutted it, left the head and scales on, and grilled it over the fire.  The skin crisped up and peeled right off with the scales.  We picked the flesh off the carcass, and it was delicious.

We eat mostly smallmouth and walleye (tho I love pike too). Usually we fry them because our "Captain" is a master with the skillet -- never oily, perfect flakes -- and we eat a lot of fish sandwiches for lunch. On an early September trip to Quetico this year, eight guys had as much fish as they could eat every night except for the longest travel days.

We also poach fish (usually walleyes or pike), or cook the fish, break into chunks and mix with rice.

In all instances, you gut, fillet and skin the fish, of course.

But one thing that's fun to do is to take larger fish and cook them over an open fire while "crucified" on a stick stuck in the ground. I believe it's called panassing, or something like that.

For those who've never seen it:

Prepare the fish by gutting it and taking off the head, tail and fins (if it's a trout, get rid of the mud vein). Then you ease out the spine and ribs with your thumb. Don't scale or skin. Then you "crucify" the fish by 1) cutting two sticks about pencil diameter or a little bigger, sharpening the ends and inserting horizontally through the farthest sides of the now-split-open fish to hold it apart, and 2) cutting a third, much longer and somewhat thicker stick and splitting it down the middle about half of its length. Sharpen the end that's not split (it goes into the ground). Slide the fish and horizontal sticks down between the split ends, and tie it shut at the top with spruce root or a piece of cord. (It looks like a lowercase "t" with two cross beams.) All the sticks should be peeled where they touch the fish.

Sprinkle salt and pepper and any other spices on the fish, then stick it into ground so the flesh side of the fish catches the heat. Watch and smell it bake. When it's done, take off the sticks, spread the fish on a rock and pull off the flaky flesh with forks.

Medium-sized fish are easiest to work with.

-- kypaddler

when we first did lake trout we would leave the scales/skin on the fillet. after experimenting with salmon back home, i determined the best flavor/texture was achieved by skinning the fillet and squirting a tiny bit of spray butter on the foil under the fish. by skinning you can also remove the mud line(all the brown glands/fat. it takes out all the really fishy gross flavoring.

i dont think ive scaled a trout in my life. they have such tiny fine scales that stay stuck in the skin its not worth the effort.

Not on stick but still close enough.

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