Fishing in the Øresund

I went fishing with my scout troop a  few weeks ago in the northern part of the Øresund, the straight between Denmark and Sweden. The fish like this part of the Øresund because it is where the Baltic and North sea mix, making a very rich feeding ground. 

When we went last year in the spring, I hooked two fish, but they both got away. Last time we were only fishing for cod, but this time we were fishing for herring and came prepared with special lures to tie along the line to attract more of them. When we found a large school, we could just drop our lines straight down, and then pull them up again immediately, that how many fish there were this time. We also caught a few cod, the scout next to me managed to break his reel somehow, so he couldn’t pull up his line. Being the big scout I am, I had to pull about 30 meters (100 feet) of fishing line in by hand with the big cod on the other end, all while making sure my own line didn’t get pulled in by a sudden catch. We managed to get the fish up to the rail of the boat, but he was unable to get the net around the fish in time, and it did break free at the last second. 

Cleaning the fish (the cod is on the left side of the sink, the mackerel is the one that still has a head, and the rest are herring. Note the small helper at my feet... )

At the end of the day, I had caught one cod, one mackerel, and 26 little herring. I had already gutted my catch on the boat, so all I had to do at home was rinse, filet, and package the fish, but because of the strong smell, I got a little helper who stood underneath me the whole time, hoping that maybe I caught all those fish just for him. 

Of the knives we had in the kitchen, my regular camp knife was much sharper, so after cleaning the fish, I used that knife instead of a kitchen one to filet the fish. Afterwards I sharpened the kitchen knives.

I had cut off the heads of all the fish when cleaning them on the boat and threw them to the seagulls, but kept the mackerel intact as possible because of its beautiful coloring. I caught the only mackerel of the day, and we probably would have just thought it was a large herring had it not been for the green tiger-stripes along its back. There were so many fish that I waited until the next day to filet them, and Eliza was very interested as well in the coloring of the mackerel, but also how the fish worked.  

After learning how to clean a fish, she was very interested in its brain. So we explored the inner working of the fish’s head for a bit, then I filleted the mackerel, 

and put it into a waiting pan...

Which Eliza and I ate for lunch. 

Because there were so many herring (26 fish make 52 filets), I decided to try a traditional Scandinavian preservation method of pickling them. I found a recipe online for Swedish pickled herring, but the Danish version is the same way.  

After a day of mixing spices/brining the fish, I packed them into jars to be kept for up to a month, to be eaten on bread or crackers.