【Autumn Flavors】A Stream Fishing Overnight Trip to Enjoy "Campfire and Pacific Saury" by Deliberately Releasing Caught Stream Fish

As summer ends and autumn approaches, one craves Pacific saury. As an author for whom stream fishing and car camping have become a life work, I wanted to somehow add autumn elements to my usual trips. Therefore, I planned a journey to "go fishing for stream fish and grill Pacific saury," driving my Jimny.

Releasing stream fish on purpose and enjoying autumn flavors while camping with sanma during a car camping trip

With autumn fully here, I've come to the field hoping to turn my usual stream fishing into a gourmet car camping trip with autumn flavors. The streams are always beautiful, even as the seasons change. Most of the rivers I visit enter the closed fishing season after the end of September, so I'm going to enjoy it to the fullest.

I'm not very good at fishing, so I usually manage to catch one fish at most, but I was able to catch one this day as well. A beautiful amago with prominent dark parr marks. It is said that the denser the parr marks, the stronger the territorial consciousness of the fish, so there may be many rivals in the spot where this individual lives. Since I'm going to eat sanma today, I will release this fish.

After exhausting the planned spots, it's time to finish fishing. I head to the campsite and start setting up. I quickly set up the backdoor tarp I completed recently, and first, cheers! The feeling of fulfillment and alcohol flowing through my body creates the best moment; it feels like I'm living for this time.

It took two hours to light the damp firewood due to the continuous rain, and I struggled greatly.

As usual, I lit the kindling branches and planned to grill sanma while it was still bright. However, the recent rains made it a struggle with the damp firewood. I thought it would be okay since I had a fire starter, but that was naive.

Even with the fire starter, the fire wouldn't spread to the other firewood, and after a certain amount of time, it would go out. To create a suitable bed of embers, a certain amount of firewood needs to be completely burned, so it was quite stressful that over an hour passed without even being able to ignite it.

As for natural fire starters, the birch bark was all over the place, so using that resulted in me being able to keep the fire going for over two hours, and the firewood dried out, creating a stable campfire. I was already exhausted from fishing during the day before I could even grill the sanma... But now I can finally start cooking.

When it finally got completely dark, I was able to start grilling the sanma.

Speaking of autumn, it's sanma season. Grilling sanma over a fire that I started myself is the main focus of this trip. I had purchased a grill from Cainz for this kind of open flame cooking. It can hold large sanma easily and flipping them is simple. Even without a tripod, it can be placed directly over the firewood fire, making it excellent for wild cooking.

I believe this item still has many other uses, so I might come up with new methods each time I use it.

Using the Cainz grill, it's very convenient because you can flip the pacific saury with one hand without worrying about the flesh falling apart or the skin peeling off. Cooking when you're tired can make grilling fish, which is often prone to failure, surprisingly challenging, but it turned out simple.

Grated daikon is a must for pacific saury. After peeling it and grating it with a grater, the topping is ready. By the way, the grater is an item that fits into a Sierra cup, which I bought a few years ago at a 100 yen shop. I really like this item as well.

Enjoying the nicely grilled pacific saury over the campfire.

As a result of being slowly grilled over embers, it was cooked to a crisp and golden perfection! It was the most labor-intensive fish I've grilled so far, and I'm really glad it turned out well.

I'll have it with grated daikon and soy sauce. The flesh separates easily and is fluffy, with a nice aroma and plenty of umami. The richness of the fat is still yet to come, but the flavor of the pacific saury brings the feeling of autumn, and it is wonderful no matter how many times I taste it. Please enjoy the time savoring this exquisite dish alone, amidst the cool night air and the tranquility echoed by the sounds of insects.

Interview and text by Kazuma Tanaka

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