Three Easy Fried Cisco Recipes

Cisco are a popular Utah fish, caught only at Bear Lake for a short period of time. Although these fish are not known for having a lot of meat, they are fun to cook and easy to eat. The meat is typically very high in fat content -- to the point that you can almost squeeze the oil out. Cisco is a soft-boned fish and when you deep fry them, the meat is easily removed from the bone.

Although some people will drop the fish straight into the fry oil right after catching hem, provided is a recipe for an easy batter mix.

Clean & Skin the fish as you typically would any other fish

Cut off head and tail

Prepare the Batter mix with the following ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup flour
A shot of Tabasco sauce, chili powder, or black pepper

Combine amounts until you reach consistency of pancake batter. Place fish in batter mix and flip it to cover both sides well.

With oil at 375 F, lay fish in deep skillet or shallow fry pot and cook until crust is golden brown.

Serve warm with lemon or lime juice.

Tip: If you want to store skinned Cisco for later, toss about a dozen in a milk jug.

Fill with water and freeze. Keep in mind that these can spoil quickly due to the high oil content.

Perkins Recipe

You cut behind the gills and over the back to the other gill. Imagine the cut to look like putting a horse shoe behind the gill to resemble the cut. With a pair of plyers pull the dorsal fin off and then grab where you made the cut while holding the head on the cutting board and peal the skin off toward the tail. The motion resembles taking off your socks. Then cut off the tail and head. Insert the knife tip where the head was with the blade toward the belly and cut it open. You can use your thumb to remove the entrails. Rinse in cold water and lay aside.

Son Chef soaked the thirty little fishes in a can of condensed milk and two cups regular cow. Using my wife’s new “Bullet Grinder” (warning: ask permission before turning the smoothie machine into a cracker grinder) He ground up a tube of Ritz Cracker and a cup of garlic croutons. A skillet he filled with enough oil that the fish could float and heated the oil to 375 degrees. Cook them until brown and then flip them.

Using a tablespoon of lemon juice, a couple gobs of mayo, use your color skills from the first grade and mix enough mustard and ketchup together until it is a light orange color. You now have Artic Circle’s secrete fry sauce.


Since it was Son Chef’s prepping and cooking choice he also prepared his favorite homemade Mac and Cheese.

Eating Cisco is a lot like fondue.  For smoking I use a lemon, brown sugar, garlic powder, and Kosher salt brine. I soak them for 8 hours and then give them a quick rinse. I load the smoker and leave it at 150 for 30 minutes. I then add a cup of dry Alder chips and run the heat up to 225 for thirty minutes.

Cisco Recipe #3
INGREDIENTS:
Approximately 1 Cup cornmeal
Approximatley 1 Cup flour
2 Tbp salt
Black Pepper to Taste (1/4- 1/2 tsp)
1 Cube butter
30 cisco fish

Directions:
Scale and gut your fish. Cisco are best when prepared fresh.

In a bowl mix all dry ingredients
Melt 1/4 of the butter in a large frying pan. Dip wet fish in flour mixture and put in hot butter. Add more butter as needed.

Cook on low heat until brown on outside and cooked through. You can eat bones, fins, and all, as they are small and tender from cooking.

Bear Lake Cisco Update January 18, 2011

After a very warm weekend with high winds the last two days, there is no longer any ice on Bear Lake. In fact the Utah State Park Marina has thawed and boats can now be launched at the marina, First Point ramp and Cisco Beach ramp. There is no snow along the east side at this time. The courtesy docks have been removed at First Point and Cisco Beach due to icing problems on the docks.

Anglers (both boat and shore) have been doing excellent for cutthroat trout and a few lake trout. Best luck has been off 2nd Point jigging and off South Eden jigging and trolling. Try depths of 40-70 feet. Use 3/4 -1 ounce jigs tipped with cisco, sucker or carp meat when jigging. The trollers are using downriggers and doing well using small flatfish and rapala-style lures with rattles in them. You can fish from shore at the Utah State Park marina and anglers are picking up a few rainbow and cutthroat trout. Try powerbait or mealworms under a bobber or spoons and spinners casted from shore. There is currently about 6”” of snow along the west side of the lake.

No cisco have showed up along the shorelines at Cisco Beach or the marina as of today, but anglers fishing from boats have been able to snag limits of cisco off the “rockpile” area the last two days. They are also catching some nice sized cutthroat, some over 6lbs, off the rockpile area using tube jigs tipped with cisco and vertical jigging spoons such as castmasters. Anglers also reported catching some Bonneville whitefish using small vertical jigging spoons and ¼ ounce jig tipped with salmon eggs. Remember, the limit on cisco is 30 fish (daily and possession) so count your fish carefully. Also, remember that a person may not possess a multipoint hook with a weight permanently or rigidly attached directly to the shank (commonly called a snag hook) or a weight suspended below a multipoint hook unless the hook is on an unweighted dropper line that is at least three inches long.

Cisco Disco and Monster Plunge at Bear Lake State Park scheduled

Garden City – Do the Cisco Disco at Cisco Beach on the east side of Bear Lake Saturday, January 22 from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Dip a net into the water and catch your share of these small whitefish that make their annual run through Bear Lake.

After the Cisco Disco, drive to Garden City on the west side of Bear Lake for a variety of events. At 10 a.m., register to take an icy swim during the Bear Lake Monster Plunge at Bear Lake State Park Marina. Plunging begins at noon and benefits Primary Children’s Medical Center. Enjoy all day ice skating at the city office building (bring your own skates). Warm cocoa and snacks will be served. For additional information, visit http://www.bearlakechamber.com/ , http://www.bearlake.org/  or call 800-448-BEAR (2327).

Northern Region Fishing Report

Big Brown Caught on the Ogden River

BEAR LAKE: (June 03) Biologist Scott Tolentino is excited because rainbow trout are being stocked in the lake, which will provide anglers with a new summertime opportunity. If the results are comparable to other waters where catchable-sized trout were stocked, stocking may continue in the future.

BIRCH CREEK RESERVOIR: (June 03) Dedicated Hunter Wes Grose reports that the reservoir is not quite full and the water is clear. Anglers had some success catching tiger trout with pink glow bugs tipped with worms, and rainbows with size 0 Mepps spinners.

BLACKSMITH FORK RIVER: (June 03) Hardware Ranch Manager Dan Christensen reports fair success with midge patterns. Some anglers have reported success with stonefly adult fly patterns.

BOUNTIFUL LAKE: (June 03) Anglers report fair fishing. Bountiful Lake is a great place to take someone that has never been fishing before.

CAUSEY RESERVOIR: (June 03) Dedicated Hunter Wes Grose reports the water is high and murky. Anglers report some success catching rainbows and tiger trout with salmon eggs and worms.

CUTLER RESERVOIR & MARSH: (May 20) The water level is high. The weather is warming, which should improve fishing. Access is good. This is a really fun place for kids. I recommend bringing a canoe and just drifting through the marsh. Try standard riggings with nightcrawlers if you're fishing for catfish or crappie.

EAST CANYON RESERVOIR & STATE PARK: (June 03) Anglers report good fishing for fat rainbows. Shore angling is slow but successful. There is a lot of fishing pressure. The northeast cove seemed to be the best fishing spot; anglers reported catching the best size of fish in the cove. Try lime green PowerBait.

ECHO RESERVOIR: (June 03) The water level is high. The water has backed up over the banks and is flowing through the willows at the inlet. Try trolling with shad raps and crankbait at a depth of 25 to 30 feet. Shore angling is very slow.

HOLMES CREEK RESERVOIR: (June 03) Angler Marleen Stanley reports that she and her husband fish this small urban pond a couple of times a week. She says that the rainbows like PowerBait, but they are excellent at stealing it off the line. Most of the fish that Marleen catches are small.

HYRUM RESERVOIR & STATE PARK: (June 03) Anglers report good fishing for fat rainbows.

JENSEN NATURE PARK POND: (May 20) Catfish stocking has started at many community fishing waters. Remember, there's a two-fish daily limit at the pond and all other community fisheries.

LITTLE CREEK RESERVOIR: (June 03) Dedicated Hunter Wes Grose reports fair success for 10- to 14-inch rainbows with green and red PowerBait.

LOGAN RIVER: (June 03) Gene Jones of Sunset, Utah caught a 30.5-inch, 15.5-pound brown trout fishing First Dam on May 30. The fish was just over eight inches wide and had a girth of 21 inches. Jones caught the fish with a worm and 8-pound test line.

LOST CREEK RESERVOIR: (June 03) Lost Creek is one of the better fishing spots right now. Anglers report catching one or more fish with lime-green, chartreuse PowerBait between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Try fishing around the dam.

MANTUA RESERVOIR: (June 03) Trout fishing has been good all spring. If you want to catch a fat rainbow, try traditional baits, lures and flies.

MIRROR LAKE: (June 03) Conservation Officer Bruce Johnson reports that Smith Morehouse is open and fishing is good. UDOT announced that Mirror Lake Highway should open by 5 p.m. on June 3. But be careful, there are still slushy, icy areas. The lakes along this scenic route are still frozen and covered with snow. It will be another couple of weeks before fishing is possible. There is still 2 or three feet of snow in some areas.

NEWTON RESERVOIR: (June 03) Tiger muskie fishing is slowly improving. Anglers report catching one or two, and seeing a lot of big muskies.

OGDEN RIVER: (June 03) Some anglers report that the stonefly hatch has started on the South Fork. The main branch of the river below is running high and fast.

PINEVIEW RESERVOIR: (June 03) Anglers report slow fishing.

PORCUPINE RESERVOIR: (June 03) There are a few reports of success for brown trout. Overall, fishing is slow.

ROCKPORT RESERVOIR: (June 03) Anglers report fair success for rainbows by trolling pop gear. Shore fishing with PowerBait or worms is very slow. Fishing for bass is fair. One group caught a two-pound smallmouth within 45 minutes.

WEBER RIVER: (June 03) Conservation Officer Bruce Johnson reports good fishing between Wanship and Coalville. Water levels have increased this last week. The water quality is still good. Biologist Paul Thompson reports that the river is up and down right now. The rain and melting snow means that the water flows and water clarity will fluctuate. Your best bets for fishable flows and decent clarity are between Echo and Rockport Reservoirs, and in the Peterson area. Try using zebra midges, hare's ear or San Juan worms around 9 a.m.

WILLARD BAY RESERVOIR: (June 03) There are anglers regularly reporting good wiper fishing, but a few are still reporting slow fishing.

Rainbow trout returning to Bear Lake

Garden City — For the first time in 24 years, you might feel a rainbow trout tugging on your fishing line at Bear Lake.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources will stock about 5,000 rainbows into the lake on May 25, 2010. About 5,000 additional rainbows will be stocked before the July 4 weekend.

The rainbow trout—which will be about 10 inches long when stocked—are not your regular rainbows. They're sterile rainbows that can't reproduce.

Because a limited number of sterile rainbows are available this year, and because Bear Lake is a large lake, it would be difficult for anglers to catch them if the fish were stocked in several places. For that reason, all of the 10,000 fish will be stocked at one place—the Bear Lake State Park Marina near Garden City.

Scott Tolentino, UDWR aquatic project leader at Bear Lake, says the rainbows will feed mostly on terrestrial insects that blow onto the surface of the water. "They should be readily available for just about anyone who has a fishing rod," he says. "Both shoreline and boat anglers should find good success."

Good methods to catch the rainbows with include using Powerbait, worms, flys or lures, such as small spinners and spoons.

Tolentino says rainbow trout should occupy a niche that fish aren't using at Bear Lake. And that niche is the shoreline.

"The water temperature along the shoreline gets too warm in the summer for cutthroat trout, so they move off shore into deep water," Tolentino says. "Bear Lake is a deep lake. The only anglers who can catch cutthroats in the summer are those who have specialized equipment, such downriggers and sonar that allow them to target cutthroat trout and lake trout in deep water."

Tolentino says rainbow trout should fill that void. "It's rare to find rainbow trout very far off shore or in deep water," he says. "They should hang out along the shoreline."

Tolentino says the DWR first stocked rainbow trout in Bear Lake in the late 1800s. "Both Utah and Idaho stocked rainbows regularly until 1986," he says. "That's when genetic studies showed the rainbows might be breeding with cutthroat trout in the lake. That hybridization posed a risk to the pure genetics of the Bear Lake Bonneville cutthroat trout in the lake."

In 1986, stocking was suspended indefinitely. "But thanks to the ability Utah's hatcheries have to rear sterile rainbow trout, the threat that rainbow trout will hybridize with the native cutthroat trout is gone," Tolentino says.

Tolentino is excited to provide anglers with a new summertime opportunity at the lake. "If the return of the stocked rainbow trout is comparable to other waters where catchable-sized trout are stocked, then stocking may continue in future years," he says.

DWR technicians will collect information from anglers about the number of fish they catch and keep. "The rainbow limit at the lake is two fish, and I encourage anglers to keep up to their limit," Tolentino says. "Most of the rainbows in Bear Lake probably won't make it through the winter."

For more information, call the DWR's Bear Lake field office at 435-946-8501.

Campsites still available for Memorial Day Weekend

Salt Lake City – With Memorial Day Weekend fast approaching, it’s not too late to reserve a campsite at a Utah state park. The following parks have campsites available for the big weekend, but are filling quickly: Bear Lake, Deer Creek, Rock Cliff at Jordanelle, Scofield, Starvation, Utah Lake, Wasatch Mountain, and Yuba.

To make a reservation or for more information, please call (801) 322-3770 from within the Salt Lake calling area and (800) 322-3770 from outside the area or visit http://www.stateparks.utah.gov/ .

Fees change at State Parks

Salt Lake – Sand Hollow, Quail Creek, Gunlock, Anasazi, Hyrum, and Bear Lake state parks implemented fee changes effective May 1. Day-use entrance fees, per vehicle with up to eight occupants, are $10 at Quail Creek, $7 at Gunlock, and $5 at Anasazi.

Individual campsites are $13 per site at Gunlock. Quail Creek campsites are $15 with a $12 extra vehicle fee. Sand Hollow Westside Loop is $28 and $15 for an extra vehicle; Sand Hollow Sandpit Loop campsites with utilities are $25 per site with an $18 extra vehicle fee. Primitive area camping at Sand Hollow is $15.

Group camping at Hyrum is $200 per night. Willow and Big Creek group sites at Bear Lake State Park are $100 per night and boat camping transient slips at Bear Lake are $20.

Your park fees provide for care, protection and enhancement of Utah’s state parks. For more information, please call (801) 538-7220.

Bear Lake Cisco Run-- Update on Ice Conditions

-- Report and Photos from Scott Tolentino

I went to Bear Lake today with my girls to dip some cisco. We got a late start and didn't get there until about 10:00 AM, but we did manage to get about 20. We didn't see any fish after noon, and left at about 12:30.

There was ice at Cisco Beach, but it wasn't great. It was anywhere from 2 - 4 inches depending on where you were standing. I personally would not have gone out on it any further than the hole that I cut because it wasn't good ice, it was just pieces that had frozen together.

By the time we left, there was water on top of most of the ice, it was warm, and the wind was blowing. Those aren't great conditions for ice, so I hope it lasts for those of you who want to get over there. A good chunk of the lake was frozen, but there is a good amount of open water too. It will be interesting to see what this storm does.

Bear Lake State Park Marina boat slip waiting list for the 2010 season is open

Garden City -- Bear Lake State Park Marina boat slip waiting list for the 2010 season is open now through February 16, 2010 at 5 p.m. A $50 wait list fee is required per slot.


Boaters interested in the silent bid process may submit bids now through 5 p.m. February 16, 2010. Silent bids must be 50 percent higher than the current slip rate. A $20 non-refundable application fee is required.

Those on the waiting list who do not receive a slip may renew their application from between February 17 and April 30 for the 2011 season. New applications for the boat slip waiting lists will be accepted as early as May 1, 2010.

For applications and more information, visit www.stateparks.utah.gov/parks/bear-lake  or call (435) 946-3343.

Cisco Run is ON!

Photo Courtesy Phil Douglass

The cisco run is officially "ON" at Bear Lake. Some anglers were standing on the ice, others were chopping big holes and were standing in the water in their waders. The run is just beginning and the schools of fish have been small (2-5 fish or so), but I talked to several anglers this morning who dipped their limits.

Those anglers working in tandem were doing better. On person was "jigging" a lure in the hole to attract the cisco and other other person dipnetted the fish. There is still a lot of open water on Bear Lake and therefore, no one is ice fishing since the ice is very "iffy". Several boats were still being launched this morning just south of Gus Rich Point. They were attempting to fish over the rockpile. Not sure if anyone made it over there or not due to sheets of ice floating around.

Fishing has been good off the weed beds south of Gus Rich Point in water about 25-35' deep from a boat. Best luck is for cutthroat, whitefish, and the occasional lake trout. Tubes and castmasters tipped with cisco have worked for the trout and small lures tipped with meal worms or salmon eggs are working for whitefish. We estimate the cisco run will peak next weekend.

The Cisco Disco is on Saturday, January 23rd. The Garden City Chamber of Commerce and the BL State Park are sponsoring some events including a "Bear Lake Monster Plunge", snow sculpture building, a 5K "fun ski" and an actual 5K race for those who are competitive. So if you come up to dip cisco in the morning, don't forget to pack a swim suit so you can jump into the water at the State Park Marina at noon. Donations are going to Primary Children's Hospital. The Bear Lake Chamber has all the details. http://www.bearlake.org/

Remember the cisco daily and possession limit is 30 fish. Please be careful and count your fish carefully or you risk being ticketed for over limit. Also, it is only legal to dip net your own limit of cisco. It is NOT legal to dip net fish for another person.

Bear Lake Fishing Report ahead of the Cisco Run

Photo Courtesy Phil Douglass

Bear Lake Fishing Report Thursday, January 14, 2010:

OK, fellows, next update won't likely be until Jan 18th.

Bear Lake still has no safe ice for ice fishing, however, the area along Cisco Beach froze over last night. However, there is still a lot of open water on the lake. Boaters have been shore-launching their boat along the southwest corner of the lake.

Anglers reported taking limits of cisco off the rockpile area using jigging spoons and castmasters. An underwater camera revealed the fish are thick and are now spawning over the rockpile area. There was a lot of floating ice which made for challenging conditions.

Although deicers are running at the State Park marina they have not been able to keep up and the marina is now frozen.

Anglers also reported good fishing for cutthroat, whitefish and lake trout in 30-50’ of water of the weedbeds south of Gus Rich Point using tube jigs tipped with cisco. No cisco have been sighted along the shorelines as of this morning, but could begin running any day.

Beginning next Monday we will be making daily checks for Cisco and updating the DWR answering machine report.

PLEASE ONLY CALL AFTER 5:00pm. 435-946-8501

Cisco Disco planned at Bear Lake State Park

Photo Courtesy Phil Douglass

Garden City – Do the Cisco Disco at Cisco Beach on the east side of Bear Lake Saturday, January 23 from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Cisco are small whitefish that make their annual run through Bear Lake. Dip a net into the water and catch your share.

After the Cisco Disco, drive to Garden City on the west side of Bear Lake for a variety of events. At noon, take an icy swim during the Bear Lake Monster Plunge at Bear Lake State Park Marina; from 2 to 4 p.m. visit Garden City Park and participate or cheer athletes in the cross country ski and snowshoe 5K races; or build or view designs at the snow sculpting contest. Enjoy all day ice skating (bring your own skates). Cocoa and snacks will be served.

For additional information, visit http://www.bearlakechamber.com/ , http://www.bearlake.org/  or call 800-448-BEAR (2327).