04-11-2016, 02:03 PM
"Has anyone got or tried the poor man lobster recipe for Wipers? I have heard talk about it, but never officially seen or tried it. Poached Wiper fillet in sugar water, dipped in garlic butter. I hope someone has some feedback. Might save me some expensive dinners...."
[#0000FF]I have been making "pseudo shrimp" for years...out of many different kinds of fish with suitable mild white flesh. Wipers are great. Ditto for perch, crappie, white bass and even walleye...if you wanna waste some otherwise delectable fillets.
I am attaching a portion of a writeup I did on "Waste Free Wipers" a while back. It shows saving the trim parts of a large wiper and poaching it to get the meat off the bones and then dipping it into garlic butter sauce with some shrimp flavoring added. But I have used that for whole fillets from several species. The hard part is finding a good powdered shrimp bouillon any more. Usually have to shop in the Mexican food section of some stores for the Knorr soup mixes...bouillon cubes..."Caldo de camarron" (shrimp soup). Then you can grate that or just dissolve it in a bit of hot water...or even in the butter, in a microwave.
Attaching the pictorial recipe.
About the sizes and numbers of wipers. There has been a noticeable decline in the average sizes of the wipers this year. That is likely because of a low or missing year class for the wipers planted the year before the smaller ones we are catching mostly this year. Typically we would be catching a lot more 3 year old fish...18-20 inches...or larger. But some year classes have problems with survival and growth rate for reasons of weather patterns, water quality, food availability...or a phenomenon known as year class suppression. That sometimes happens when a larger year class out-competes a younger year class for available food or habitat.
DWR has maintained a steady planting program but for reasons beyond their control "stuff happens". A high percentage of the total numbers of wipers planted each year are "sac fry"...tiny tykes only a day or so out of the eggs, with yolk sacs still attached and not yet able to feed. Bad timing or poor environmental conditions (food availability) can result in a much higher mortality rate. Even the larger fingerlings planted later still have to survive the gauntlet of hungry predators and have to be able to find enough food to get them up the growth ladder.
In case nobody noticed, Willard has been really low for the last few years. That totally disrupts the ecology and messes up the food chain. Once the fish get large enough to feed on shad...and if the shad have been able to spawn well...then they can usually make it. But there are a lot of things besides "mussel chuckers" that will influence the supply of angler-preferred size wipers.
That being said, there can be no denying that there is an increased wholesale harvest of wipers over years past. Before the last couple of years of musselmania there were very few wipers caught by anyone besides the trolling floatilla. Those fishing from shore with worms or minnows caught an occasional bonus wiper, but there were not the hundreds of fish caught per day in some of the popular spots.
How is that going to affect the wiper fishing this year? Next year? I think we will see a change in the numbers taken by boaters later this year. And I think the netting surveys in the fall will reflect some changes too.
But...that's not my yob. (job)
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
[#0000FF]I have been making "pseudo shrimp" for years...out of many different kinds of fish with suitable mild white flesh. Wipers are great. Ditto for perch, crappie, white bass and even walleye...if you wanna waste some otherwise delectable fillets.
I am attaching a portion of a writeup I did on "Waste Free Wipers" a while back. It shows saving the trim parts of a large wiper and poaching it to get the meat off the bones and then dipping it into garlic butter sauce with some shrimp flavoring added. But I have used that for whole fillets from several species. The hard part is finding a good powdered shrimp bouillon any more. Usually have to shop in the Mexican food section of some stores for the Knorr soup mixes...bouillon cubes..."Caldo de camarron" (shrimp soup). Then you can grate that or just dissolve it in a bit of hot water...or even in the butter, in a microwave.
Attaching the pictorial recipe.
About the sizes and numbers of wipers. There has been a noticeable decline in the average sizes of the wipers this year. That is likely because of a low or missing year class for the wipers planted the year before the smaller ones we are catching mostly this year. Typically we would be catching a lot more 3 year old fish...18-20 inches...or larger. But some year classes have problems with survival and growth rate for reasons of weather patterns, water quality, food availability...or a phenomenon known as year class suppression. That sometimes happens when a larger year class out-competes a younger year class for available food or habitat.
DWR has maintained a steady planting program but for reasons beyond their control "stuff happens". A high percentage of the total numbers of wipers planted each year are "sac fry"...tiny tykes only a day or so out of the eggs, with yolk sacs still attached and not yet able to feed. Bad timing or poor environmental conditions (food availability) can result in a much higher mortality rate. Even the larger fingerlings planted later still have to survive the gauntlet of hungry predators and have to be able to find enough food to get them up the growth ladder.
In case nobody noticed, Willard has been really low for the last few years. That totally disrupts the ecology and messes up the food chain. Once the fish get large enough to feed on shad...and if the shad have been able to spawn well...then they can usually make it. But there are a lot of things besides "mussel chuckers" that will influence the supply of angler-preferred size wipers.
That being said, there can be no denying that there is an increased wholesale harvest of wipers over years past. Before the last couple of years of musselmania there were very few wipers caught by anyone besides the trolling floatilla. Those fishing from shore with worms or minnows caught an occasional bonus wiper, but there were not the hundreds of fish caught per day in some of the popular spots.
How is that going to affect the wiper fishing this year? Next year? I think we will see a change in the numbers taken by boaters later this year. And I think the netting surveys in the fall will reflect some changes too.
But...that's not my yob. (job)
[/#0000FF]
[signature]