Shad Roe (Daily Limit Hit)

[Bearcarver]

Shad Roe (Daily Limit Hit)​

I know—I know—Most of you guys don’t like Roe, but that’s mostly because you never had any. LOL

Bear Jr seems to have gotten the hang of catching the “American Shad” on their run up the Delaware River.
He’s Captain of a Pool Team in this area, and a couple years ago, an older Guy “Magaro” joined his team.
He turned out to be the most knowledgable Shad Fisherman of the whole Delaware River Basin.
This guy is known as “Shad Pappy” by All Shad Fishermen in New Jersey & Pennsylvania, and catches Hundreds of Shad annually.
He was President of the DRSFA “Delaware River Shad Fishing Association”.
Over the years (80 years old), Magaro's reputation has made him the subject of numerous articles in outdoor magazines and a sought-after speaker for shad fishing seminars. Magaro's nickname, "Shad Pappy," started at his hunting camp in Wayne County, where he was dubbed "Pappy" because he is one of the older members. The word shad was added later in reference to his Shad angling exploits.
So it didn’t take long for Bear Jr & Shad Pappy to become Buddies, and the old boy took him under his wing with some extra “Shad Fishing” tutoring.
So this time, Bear Jr took his Young Buddy, “Brian” with him. Brian is his helper in his Woodshop, and his “Director of Operations” of his Corporation “TAC Pro, Inc". — ”Towers, Antennas, and Cabling Professionals Inc.” that he started back in 1999.
This day they caught 23 Shad, but only brought the legal limit home with them, which is 3 American Shad per person. And since all we want is the Shad Roe, they brought 6 “Roe” Shad home.
So Bear Jr brought me a Big Zip-Lock with a mess of Shad Roe sets in it. I then proceeded to separate the sets from double lobes to individual sacks. Then I cleaned them up a little & put them in a bowl full of salted water. After an overnight soak in the fridge, the water had turned to a pale Red from the blood being pulled from the Roe, by the Salt Water. I drained the container, rinsed the Roe, and put them back in the container submerged in clear unsalted water, to get rid of excess salt.
A couple hours later I gently rinsed them again, Dried them off pretty good, and bagged them all in the thickness of one, added some hunks of Butter, and vacuum sealed the bag.
Then at 10 AM I set my Sous Vide Supreme at 140° & put the bag in, clipped to my SV rack. At 4 PM I removed the package & put it right into a big bowl of ice, and then into the Fridge.

Time To Cook: (Ninja Time)
I lightly rinsed the Roe Sacks one more time & patted them dry with paper towels.
Then I set my Ninja at 390°, on Bake, and let it Pre-heat.
When it was Ready I put 6 big thick slices of Bacon in for 4 minutes & removed the Bacon. Then I put all the Roe in the Baking Pan, in the Bacon Fat, & closed the lid. It was a tighter fit than I wanted, but I got them all in.
At 3 minutes, I flipped them All over & at 5 minutes I checked them out. They were nearly done to my liking, so I put the Bacon back in, on top of the Roe, and gave them another 2 minutes, and called it quits.
As you will see below, that Bacon, along with all that Roe, and some Cranberry Sauce gave this Roe Loving Bear some awesome Shad Roe Meals, and I bagged a few more Roe & Bacon Meals for my Freezer for another time, and a few meals for Bear Jr, so all he’ll have to do is heat them up & enjoy them.
Don’t miss the Pics below, and I’ll describe them in the captions above each Picture.

Bear

6 Sets of Shad Roe soaking in Salted Cold Water over night:

6 Sets of Shad Roe soaking in clear cold water for a few hours:

12 separated Sacks of Shad Roe patted Dry before going in SV:

12 Sacks of Shad Roe, after 6 hours of 140° in my Sous Vide Supreme:

Cooking in My Ninja (See Text):

Bear's first Night's Meal, of Shad Roe, Bacon, Broccoli, and Cranberry Sauce:

Bear's 2nd Night's Meal, of Shad Roe, Bacon, and Sliced Baked Potato Fried in Butter:

 

[Bearcarver]

Thank You for the Like, Big W.
Good to see ya!

Bear

 

[TNJAKE]

Does it taste like salmon patties John?

 

[Buckeyedude]

Im intrigued! Im from North central OHIO and the shad we see are small. Like 8" or less. Those sacks looked like they are from much larger fish!
I work with a guy that his dad has a spot that they fish for shad real early in the year. But they are catfisherman and all they want is the guts for tournament fishing.

 

[Bearcarver]

Does it taste like salmon patties John?

No, the only Salmon patties I ever had didn't have much taste at all.

Roe is hard to describe, but if you do the Prep soaking with saltwater, and then clear water, the way I show above, it's the best tasting fish you ever had. You can get an idea, if you take some sacks from smaller fish, like Bluegills, Perch, Crappies, Bass, Suckers, and do the same prep & cooking. I tried Trout, but I didn't like the texture, and there wasn't much there anyway.

Bear

 

[912smoker]

Fine looking meal John. We would catch them down here in Jan. on their spawning run.
But it's been 25 yrs or so since I've had some good roe .

Keith

 

[smokerjim]

Looks good from here bear

 

[Bearcarver]

Im intrigued! Im from North central OHIO and the shad we see are small. Like 8" or less. Those sacks looked like they are from much larger fish!
I work with a guy that his dad has a spot that they fish for shad real early in the year. But they are catfisherman and all they want is the guts for tournament fishing.

The ones we catch are the "American Shad".
Adult males, called "bucks," generally weigh 2 to 3 pounds, while females, called "roe," average 4 to 6 pounds.
The Pennsylvania state record, a 9-pound, 9-ounce roe, was caught in the Delaware River in Pike County in 1986. The world record American shad is an 11-pound, 14-ounce fish taken from the Connecticut River in Massachusetts, also in 1986. The Roe sacks often weigh up to 2 pounds, near the end of the spawning run.

We have smaller Shad, but we don't fish for them. One is the ":Hickory Shad", and one a lot of people use for bait is called "Gizzard Shad" is about 8".

Bear

 

[jcam222]

Im intrigued! Im from North central OHIO and the shad we see are small. Like 8" or less. Those sacks looked like they are from much larger fish!
I work with a guy that his dad has a spot that they fish for shad real early in the year. But they are catfisherman and all they want is the guts for tournament fishing.

I’m in NE Ohio, growing up we fished a local quarry often. There were HUGE shad in it. Never could catch one though.

No, the only Salmon patties I ever had didn't have much taste at all.

Roe is hard to describe, but if you do the Prep soaking with saltwater, and then clear water, the way I show above, it's the best tasting fish you ever had. You can get an idea, if you take some sacks from smaller fish, like Bluegills, Perch, Crappies, Bass, Suckers, and do the same prep & cooking. I tried Trout, but I didn't like the texture, and there wasn't much there anyway.

Bear

I would definitely give them a go. I grew up eating bluegill and rock bass eggs fried. Loved them.

 

[Bearcarver]

Fine looking meal John. We would catch them down here in Jan. on their spawning run.
But it's been 25 yrs or so since I've had some good roe .

Keith

Yup---I figured your share would be around January, because they get here around March. They're hard to find for years around here. I used to be able to buy them, but the stores quit, because of the high prices a few years ago.
Restaurants quit, because they'd have to charge $30 per meal to make their profits.
When I was a kid, my Dad caught a lot more Suckers than Shad, so in Spring he'd catch a couple of buckets of 18" to 22" suckers & pull the roe out of them.
Then he'd give the Sucker bodies to my Granpop, who would Till them into his garden. Then we would remove worms from that same garden to use for fishing. We had a regular cycle going there, and enjoyed the awesome tasting Sucker Roe, in the mean-time, which in my opinion is every bit as tasty as Shad Roe. I used to add to that cycle with my Bowfishing set-up at a couple of creeks I knew about where suckers used to spawn in Early Spring. Shoot them with my Bow, reel them in, remove the Roe, give bodies to Grandpop.

About 10 years ago, I found a Wholesaler, and bought 20 sets from him for $7 per set. Then a few years later I found some at Giant, and bought their last 7 sets for $10 per set. I called Giant last year, and they said they probably won't be getting them any more, due to prices, and if they did, they would have to get about $20 per set.

So you can see how hard I tried to get Shad Roe over the years, and you can see how Bear Jr came to the rescue of my cravings of Baked Roe.

Bear

 

[MJB05615]

Excellent meal and writeups John. It's good that you can now get them pretty regularly. Great job.

 

[jcam222]

John I’ve had the sucker roe. My best friends dad when I was a kid would gig them in the spring. Have you ever eaten the sucker in fish patties? They would pressure cook it, mix with cracker and spices and fry patties. They were amazing.

 

[Bearcarver]

Looks good from here bear

Thank You Jim!!
And for the Like.

Bear

 

[Bearcarver]

I’m in NE Ohio, growing up we fished a local quarry often. There were HUGE shad in it. Never could catch one though.


That must have been some other fish.

The Shad we get the Roe from---The "American Shad" is born in the rivers, migrates to the Ocean, then years later runs up the same river it was born in, to spawn. These would never be in a quarry. I'm wondering what it actually was.

Bear

 

[jcam222]

The Shad we get the Roe from---The "American Shad" is born in the rivers, migrates to the Ocean, then years later runs up the same river it was born in, to spawn. These would never be in a quarry. I'm wondering what it actually was.

Bear

I’m gonna have to do a little asking around now. It’s been years since I fished there and it’s protected property now.

 

[crazymoon]

Bear , I like roe but it has to be deep fried. You are a hard core "roe man" !

 

[Gonna Smoke]

I’m in NE Ohio, growing up we fished a local quarry often. There were HUGE shad in it. Never could catch one though.

As John said, not American shad. My guess would be gizzard shad which live well in impoundments and ponds and will grow to 16" or so. We get an annual spring run of American shad here usually around the middle to the end of February through April and they'll bite any kind of small jig as long as it's green. It's a very popular fishery when they're running and our state record is 7 lbs. with the possession limit being either 10 or 20 depending on where we they are fishing...

 

[Bearcarver]

Excellent meal and writeups John. It's good that you can now get them pretty regularly. Great job.

Thank You Mike!!
Yup---Next year's run should put some Roe in my Freezers & Belly.
It's good that you can tell which ones have eggs before you keep them, since some states allow 10 per day, and we're only allowed 3.
And Thanks for the Like.

Bear

 

[Bearcarver]

As John said, not American shad. My guess would be gizzard shad which live well in impoundments and ponds and will grow to 16" or so. We get an annual spring run of American shad here usually around the middle to the end of February through April and they'll bite any kind of small jig as long as it's green. It's a very popular fishery when they're running and our state record is 7 lbs. with the possession limit being either 10 or 20 depending on where we they are fishing...

I have always loved Shad Roe Pan-Fried, Broiled, Deep Fried, or Baked, but now that I can Sous Vide & Air Fry it in my Ninja, that is my new favorite method.

I guess it depends on how different areas are holding up, because a number of states have a "Hook & Line" limit of 10 Shad per day, but NJ & PA are limited to 3, and DE is 0.

Bear

 

[Bearcarver]

Bear , I like roe but it has to be deep fried. You are a hard core "roe man" !

I love it no matter what method, as long as it's not Rare.
Great Stuff !!

Bear