Caught fish ready for the smoker

It was a real nice trip.  My lifelong friend Red Beard and I and our two sons, born 8 days apart, went to a mountain lake that I had never been to before.  The fishing was good.  The bite came in cycles, and when it was on, we sure had fun coaching, "Keep reeling!", "Don't let the line go slack!", and hollering for nets.  After a couple hours passed we had a nice catch and decided to stretch our legs a bit, paddling the aluminum canoe into shore near where a big log was jutting out into the lake. 

fishing on a log for trout

The boys kept fishing from the log, Red Beard tended to some gear, and I went for a little explore, which yielded a nice find of pitch pine.  I gathered up some of the fuel rich bark, broke off small dead branches, and built a small campfire back at the shore.  It wasn't cold, we weren't hungry yet.  It was, I suppose, a 'just because' fire.  Although the forest was still fairly damp, the pitch-rich bark couldn't be stopped.  The little fire was crackling nicely when Red Beard knelt down beside with a sharpened forked stick.  He had already cleaned a couple of the trout, not wanting the little fire to go to waste.  If I try to tell you how delicious they were, you'll think I'm exaggerating.  They were delicious- crispy skin, succulent meat, simple and simply delicious.  We fished on, and the bite had several more spikes in action, so we had plenty of leftover catch.  Here is how I cooked the trout on the wood fire pellet grill for a weeknight dinner. 

Seasoned fish ready for the grill

Super simple campfire style

Cleaned trout, sprinkled inside and out with seasoned salt.  Grill set to 375 degrees.

Trout on the grill

Belly up on the bars

Small mountain trout fit nicely nestled between grid bars.  This duplicates our campfire cook method, and gets the thicker part of the meat closer to the heat.  No turning required. 

smoked fish on the Kuma Platinum SE

The fish on the left was our whopper- I put the meat probe in the thickest part, and pulled the fish off at 145 degrees.

This technique works really great.  The fish had crispy skin and succulent meat- just like the campfire.