Welcome to my other kitchen

There are still places where you can go. Park your truck by a stream or on the shore of a lake and not see anyone for hours, days, maybe weeks. If you so desire, you can choose to take the sparest of supplies--a pan, a camp stove, and a few other cooking needs—with the plan to supply the bulk of calories via catch of the day. Worst case scenario is that you'll not eat, and maybe you'll find atonement during your involuntary fast. Better days will see you filling the belly with lovely fish.

Pack wisely and boldly. No side dishes. No back-up plan. If you don't catch, you don't eat. Period. Maybe some oil is okay. And breading—some flour pre-mixed with a dry rub seasoning, salt, and bread crumbs. Don't forget a good knife and a cutting board.

If you're feeling really cocky, you might go somewhere that doesn't allow you to kill any fish under a given size standard (like 18 inches). So unless you're willing to break the law, you might need to release fish after fish before you get one big enough. Not hard enough just to have to provide your own groceries? Neandertals didn't have to deal with size limits. [But they didn't have the benefit of graphite fly rods and personal fishing vessels either!]

The dinner bell doesn't ring until your net is around a keeper. After that, the kitchen help will watch attentively, cheering wildly with every bit of mess you ask them to clean up.

An 18-inch trout, having fed upon natural lake foods (bugs) for the better part of two years, develops a flesh with the deepest ruby tones of sockeye salmon. Fillets should be relieved of the larger (rib and fin) bones and cut into four pieces before dredging them in the breading mix.

Note that fish cooked within minutes of death "responds" to the heat of cooking as live muscle. The fish will contract fiercely on the skin side, and so it's best to start sautéing with the skin side up. It will still flex , but a lot slower, giving the flesh a chance to cook before you flip it over. It's really hard getting the pavé to cook evenly if the thing curls into a tube. It is seriously frustrating to cook fish this fresh if you're not expecting this small detail of the live muscle response.

The result is generally spectacular and made to seem even more so by your previous hours of fasting. A cold beer or two should be on hand to make the celebration complete.

How long to go on? A few days? Until the beer runs out? Until you're chased out of the site by unfriendly weather and abandoned by your kitchen staff?