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In a similar spirit to My Self Reliance's thread about perch, I thought we could talk about burbot/ling. It would seem it's an underexploited fish that we could balance out our fishing effort a bit by targetting. I don't know about burbot ecology in Algonquin specifically but I gather that in general burbot can be quite abundant in spots where they live.
My question is not just where in the park one might catch burbot, but how, since what fishing info is out there seems to focus on hardwater. Has anyone fished burbot in the Algonquin backcountry, or in conditions that would be applicable to the Algonquin backcountry?
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Have you eaten one?
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I haven't, no. But I'm given to understand they're pretty good if you slice the backstraps crosswise, parboil the pieces, and then sear them with butter like scallops.
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Given that my user name is French for burbot, I ought to know, but I have never eaten one. I've heard them referred to as "poor man's lobster," though, so they sound promising.
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Some googling seems to indicate that they become inactive during summer which might explain why they're mostly caught while icefishing.
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never caught one in the park, but have caught them incidentally out to the west side of AP while steel-lining lake trout in the summer
My understanding is you'll get them deep, and on bottom, much like lakers and whitefish during open water . . .
There is a decent little write up in the "Fishes of Algonquin Park" book . . .
We have eaten them a couple times (Lake Nipissing ice fishing) and they really are very similar to their salt water cousins, the codfish . . .
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burbot, fresh water cod, great eating, nice firm flesh,
i have boiled them in very heavy salted water,, and then make up a garlic butter , that is the poor mans lobster effect. (same for white fish) burbot are easy to clean, draw the knife round the head under the skin and then pull the skin off with pliers from head to tail. great camp chowder fish too.
i have seen big ones caught and released in big crow. during the spring after ice out. lake of bays has a good burbot population too.
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I"ve caught them in LOTR, at night. Sure are ugly fish, lol.
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