trout taste like mud...

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When I was a lad, we used to catch trout from a local river - and they tasted largely of whatever factory was pumping out upstream. We came up with some creative methods of cooking them to hide the taste.

My guess would be that the wild fish with a wild diet will taste of their environment, as opposed to the farmed fish which will be fed on fishmeal and whatever else we associate with shop-bought fish.

ATB

Ogri the trog

Oh, and welcome aboard!
 
All the fish I've caught have been nice- the smaller ones tend to be more gamey than the larger ones. I'd say diet, maybe they've been stocked. Some lakes do stock so there's more to catch- maybe they'd fed them on a muddy tasting pellet?
 
I think that trout tastes like the river it was caught in.

Clean river? Delicate trout flavour.
Muddy river? No thanks.
 
I think that trout tastes like the river it was caught in.

Clean river? Delicate trout flavour.
Muddy river? No thanks.

Yep, same as crayfish and carp. Seen Hugh Fairly Unstable put his carp in a holding tank with fresh river water flowing into it for a few days before cooking.
 
depends what theyre eating ... muddy tasting trout i ate once was caught after a spate, other fish from same river never tasted so muddy, so maybe eating earth filled worms?
 
I've always found rainbows pretty muddy - not surprising as they are mainly pellet-fed - but brown trout are THEBIZZZ! Lol - but, it depends where they are living & what they are eating. Here in Scotland upland brown and brook trout beyond agriculture, forestry, and fertilisers, are probably as organic as it's possible to get nowadays.
 
The muddy taste is frequently the fat lining between the skin and the flesh of the fish. With all fresh water fish - clean them of their innards and remove the blood gutter (actually the kidney) from the cavity around the spine towards the vent. Cooking them with something citrusy (is that a word? It is now!) lemon or orange helps break down the fat while it cooks, butter helps dissolve and further separate it from the flesh and will reduce the 'muddiness'.

Better still is to brine or salt the fish for a while before cooking. Everyone will have their own taste regarding salinity, a little goes a long way in my experience, brining takes longer than salting but both work.
 
and sea-trout are even better than either!

What species do you catch there? I can catch Speckled Sea trout (best available here)

rh-spotted-florida-seatrout-02-12.JPG



and White Sea Trout (not as good but Ok)

th
 
Likely Salmo trutta santaman - unless nic is outside of the UK. Sea run brown trout, as a steelhead is to a rainbow, so sea trout are to brown trout in the UK. I'm not sure how well they do in the North Americas but the Tierra del Fuego is a 'mecca' for them in the South Americas and the runs around the Falklands are supposed to be pretty good too.

Google image:
trout.jpg
 

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