Wickiup Mud

Since opening weekend I have had the Queen Mary out on Wickiup Res. thrice. Ah yes, she purs like a kitten... choking on a hairball every hour or so! Runs like a champ for such an old little outboard. The Queen herself is worthy. I had here out in 2+ ft white-caps. It was pretty hairy, and quite a ride, but she managed well. I just have to be careful on rough water. See, the motor and fat operator sit in the very rear of the boat, along with tackle and fuel tank. So, if you can picture this, when I hit a nice wave, the bow goes up and the stern goes doooown until the wave passes. I would not doubt if I had that bow 2 ft. higher than my head at some point. Felt like she was going to end-over backwards on me, but it would take a whole lot more than a 2 ft wave to actually get me up and over. Anyway, Wickiup is famous for large Kokanee. I fished it last year with Kit and had some really nice hits by big kokes.... I'm talk'n 18 - 20 inch range. Day one on Wickiup this year produced a nice 16 inch chromie, as well as a couple 13-14 inchers. Day two put 4 over 13 inches on the boat. So not bad at all, especially when I am used to catching East Lake kokes averaging 10 - 12 inches. I think I found my fishery for the year! I can go into details on method later. The purpose of this post is to fill you in on my new totally awesome smoke brine for Kokes. I was fiddling around with some ingredients (just improvising) and ended combining two of my favorite recipes into one.... which I have dubbed, "Wickiup Mud." I bet you want it, huh? OK, her it is: For 8 medium fillets, Combine the followingng ingredients and mix very well; 2 C soy sauce, 1 C orange juice, 1.5 C molasses, 2 C brown sugar, 1 C white sugar, 1/2 C non-iodized salt, 2 T diced ginger root, 4 huge T minced garlic, 2 tsp sesame oil, and (the secret ingredient) 3 T Rose City Pepperhead's Mango Madness BBQ dipping & cooking jelly. Good luck on that one! Check out their web site... maybe you can order it (rosecitypepperheads.com). Since koke fillets are thinner, smoke time is going to be shorter (depending on other variables, such as wind, outside temp, etc.). I smoke with Alder for around 2.5 - 3 hours. It's AWESOME. I'll post pictures the next time I brine. Here are a couple of 13-14" chromers right before they lost their fillets. Tight lines!