How To Cut And Smoke People Quality Dry Fish Yukon River Style - Stan Zuray

hello it's a beautiful sunny day on the Yukon here although this morning it was raining a little but we got a beautiful day for cutting fish and that's what I'm going to be talking about again here this is the I've done a dog food cutting video I've done a how to make fish strip video and today I'm going to do the third type of fish that we've cut and that's what is called dry fish some people call them edibles and you know that's what's on the rack behind me these things these things will cut yesterday and we had enough Sun that they got a nice glaze on them they're starting to dry and and they're pretty tricky to cut they're there what they're cut in the fall time like now this is the very beginning of the fall when the Kings have stopped migrating up the river and now the next run the fall chump starting to migrate up the river they're in too many people myself included they're probably the most important fish on the Yukon and we've been lucky to have no troubles with them all these years as little ups and downs natural ups and downs but there's been no overfishing or you know no real problems and what it is is they're the they're how we feed our dogs and they're also how their main food supply for people food also very important food fish sauce and I'm going to go through a couple of different techniques on how to do it an old traditional method that we still use here at camp and then I've got some anybody likes to see my inventions stuff like that things I dried my famil billables kind of stuff you know spend all this time developing some ways do something different you know and half the time you don't work out and they just get thrown away but this one is not the cool way so far not see what the damn things of it but regardless we'll go through the technique and even when you see this new way I got to cut these things it'll show you what we're what we're trying to do the technique behind this because they have tricky fish to cut and they're being cut at a time of year when there isn't as much Sun the sun's gotten to decrease and the weather start to get a little cooler today's a beautiful day like I say and even this wind is really important to dry in this mission you need the Sun you need the wind we've got an old one of the elders down can endow the traditional chief of Tanana Lester my buddy down there he he says when you cutting these things if you don't have Sun that first day they're never going to be as good as that's key thing is having Sun on the day you cut them when it's not sunny so ok we'll we'll get on with that and statue on you were going to show you the smokehouse and get into a little more the operation of it people have asked I've shown my smokehouse before on videos and stuff and but I've never really talked too much about the operation of this stuff so we're going back to ok good ok now we're going to do this two different methods each one of these ways here the first thing you got to do though is you got a rhythm and you got to do that no matter what type of method you're using and get those rib bones off [Music] but they say that's something you don't do if you're cooking god food or cutting dog food yeah just dogs you just find that's dog food that's going to go up in this rack right behind me I'll show you that stuff that's what I feed the dogs this time of year I don't cook dog cuts in the fall hardly once a while but most of the time they're just eating all the byproducts of cutting these edibles there's this byproducts of king salmon too but like the rib bones and stuff but you'll see I'm going to be cutting a big slab off of its fish it's it's an appreciable amount of flesh and you can use it for canning and and whatever dry it some people dry in their smoke houses and stuff like that but I'm going to cut I'm going to catch and cook dog food if I don't dry this stuff so it doesn't really matter if dogs are going to be eating chum salmon and it's just a an easier thing to do with the slabs that come on here although a lot of I can't fish is made out of them there's only so much you can so there's so much fish you can use canned so we're going to take this guy just a couple piece of wood thing on if there screws and it's this thick and I have another one over here if you use in worse weather like if it's really rainy or softening you still want to keep trying to put them up this just takes more of a slab off and so there's less fish to dry less fish to sour less fish to worry about and it dries faster so that's my bub weather one if you use this one you really have to like when I use that one I don't even worry about this stretching of the fish that I'm going to show you that makes such a big deal about but if you use this thicker thing you have to somehow stretch the fish you if you like to fish sour which some people like it sour I mean some people don't care I've eaten lots of that too but I care and I bought it with this fish and you know I give it to a lot of different kinds of people and and so you know I like the fish to be not right okay so so the first method is this is the traditional method it's simply to make cuts and when you make the cuts you don't want to make them too narrow because then they'll fall on top of each other when you hang them up vertically and you don't want to make them too why because then they will dry so this this is what I make them about like this and when I do it I'm not doing it with a cutting motion so much a little bit it moved the knife moves a little bit but it's kind of a push down with a little bit of a slide you don't want to be cutting it if you do if you're really just cutting it you're going to cut through that flesh and and by and when you get to that skin on the other side you're just going to cut right through and you don't want to do that because that's the strength of your fish you need that skin intact so like I say this is pretty fast if I'm not filming and showing things you know you just you can whip this out pretty pretty fast the other method is a little slower but so what I do now is I take this knife and here I always leave on a little bit of the collar of the fish up by the head and it's really thick and strong so you can take your knife and you can hold it like that and you can stretch and and you can see those those cuts just opening up when I stretch it like that that's what you want any place where it's touching tomorrow when I go through all my fish after they get a little bit of a glaze I'll go through all my fish and any place where it's touching I have to take a scissors and I can show you that to make a few cuts on some fish and show you this is this thing but because this fish is touching like that if you cut into it and you expose that flesh and you get bacteria in there which instantly gets in there and then that fish dries together like that when you open that up it's just going to be all sour in there so you don't want you want all those things opened up nice and if they're not opened up nice the next day you want to do it and open it up like what a scissors or something like that by cutting off the flesh that's touching so that's the traditional method and some people do things like they take the skin like this and they've run the back of the knife over and they just do it really hard I don't like that because it uplifts the scales a lot and the flies lay eggs and the scales and and and some people take the blade of their knife I can't it just drives me nuts when I see it and they'll take it and they'll run it over the thing like that I just all I can think of as as much care as it takes to get a nice razor edge on a knife how fast that razor edge is getting destroyed by doing that but so anyway now the next method next method here we'll look at a slab off this and you cut towards cut towards the back not towards the belly if you cut this way you're going to crimp up the fish or whatever anyway okay so now I'm going to show you my fully adjustable automatic fish stretching system that's a new name I just gave it and I've had a number of a number of different methods in the past and a couple people all around here everybody's got some sort of way of stretching the fish and and this is just something I usually get pretty complicated and my wife drives my wife nuts when she sees what I did to her cutting table I'm always messing around with a cutting table she'll you know I got this wire here that holds this file and this pole and and it's like a hinge thing I put the fish under here it's done a weight on there just to pull you for a weight and and a little wire here for so what needs to be done if something needs to be done that will pull the fish like that and it doesn't have to be this it can be anything you make up some people have a block with a bunch of nails and they have the and they dig it down into the flesh and it destroys a little flesh though and but then they got to pull on it at the same time with the hand and they're cut like that and you know people use different methods I like this one this is how I'm cutting all my fish this year I got a hook just a two piece of whatever and put that on there then I have a 10-pound weight and it's got a nylon string and I'll lay it over the table like that that stretches the fish yep so that making cuts and you can see and every time you make a cut it opens right up and the fish actually stretches a little bit more and you can be real accurate and you can use both hands and just take your time you're not applying tension at the same time you're cutting and rushing it you know and that's what I didn't like about all the other methods I've used so we've got it all cut and final thing let's see I did start to have a little trouble with that last section there that was ripping off a little and then finally just give it a stretch and those cuts open right up just like on the other method yeah take the hook off you're done you know it's not too much different but to me the accuracy and the and the ease with which I can stretch it it's worth messing with the jig okay this is a smudge fire and it's keep flies away from the fish while it's doing its initial drying this is this is right after we get it hang hung up it's very really windy enough to keep the flies off by itself so we got to you know get a little pot or people use different things and just burn cotton wood and leaves and different anything just to you know you don't want to put spruce in there it's same as in the smokehouse you want to use something that's you know good smoke for the fish but yep and just let the fish sit out and dry a little because right now they're real susceptible to flies once the things get a coat they're kind of bomb-proof you know and if you have the like down on the beach here though down on the beach right in the middle of the camera there it's late in the day now and the sun's starting to leave this Northshore and so I move the fish down the beach from that's those are fish from yesterday and they're going to go in the smokehouse here tonight and this is the last chance to get Sun so I get about two more hours of Sun down the beach there and it's really nice and windy so they're getting a good glaze on them down there and then they'll go in the smokehouse and stay there for most of their two or three weeks that it takes them to get good and dry and maybe if you get some damp weather I might pull everything out of the smokehouse and hang them on these outside racks and stuff like that yet it's a are always playing with these things like I say they're they're not as carefree as fish strips and they certainly are not as carefree as my dog food sitting down there that stuff get a little glaze on them and cover them up and you don't even worry about them anymore okay here's yesterday's fish like I say this this used to be this fish here used to be a fillet like that and I just cut it right down the center and that just exposes the center pot there which is the thickest to the Sun and the drying and all that and yeah they're drying all nice yeah and these things have all been have all been cut like I'll get some Susan's here and I'll show you now I'm going to show you how you handle this fish if you get like a touching section I've already done these so it's a not really let's just say let's just say that this fish this piece here was touching that piece that they were kind of together like that and this is this is what I do these all these have been cut I've gone through all these and made a lot of cuts what you do is take the scissors and take off a little piece of fish like that where it's touching same with here and take off a little piece of fish like that because anywhere where it's touching is going to sour it if you like sour fish that's fine but you know if you get bad weather it could be more than just sour it could be almost it could be just plain rotten fish and again some people like rotten fish I mean it's just a taste thing it's just like cheese you know some people like like blue cheese or something you know I can't stand blue cheese you know I won't even eat anything that has it on it it's but I love cheese and I love yogurt all that but that's all cured soured you know stuff that's I guess some people would say it's rotten you know well this stuff's the same same thing this is in a process of curing and if it cures slow and in the Sun and gets lots of air and there's no place is touching where it's getting all you know bacteria in there and rotting you know it's it's it's a good kind of cure taste you know and to me and but if it's rotten it's just it just changes the I mean it'll all dry it'll all be edible and like I say some people love I've had people love to eat the stuff on my dog racks you know and they think that's just fine you know to each their own I'm just telling you you don't want anything touching it's going to ruin your fish and especially if beautiful weather you get away with murder but you know it's not usually beautiful weather for the entire fall season okay here's the smoke ups this is the smoke stove and right now it's a well pretty windy day there at many flies around and there's not a lot of smoke coming out of here but really normally there isn't too much more smoke coming out of that thing you just want to fill the thing up with you know enough smoke that you're after a couple weeks the fish is going to have a good smoke pace to it it doesn't take much right now the stove I can touch it it's a little hot right there but like I say the oil isn't even burning off on it and yeah put a little wood in there and it's just smoldering cottonwood just keep it keep it going 24 hours a day and I want to see what and it's a cold smoke it's not a hot smoke you don't want you know if I was trying to smoke the fish in one day like what they call kippered salmon or hot smoked salmon give one a lot of smoke but yeah at night I'll close it up here I'll show you I'll show you the smokehouse is the smokehouse is pretty much empty it's a three tiers bottom tier and then two more tiers up there and it has a window or a piece of ten left out on the side which great jumper for hire like that and close it up like at night up close both sides close the door and take time morning I come out here when Sun comes up I'll open them up and let the air all in at night when the damp air is out there and stuff like that or a rainy day close everything up so like I say I got a I got the same thing on the other side just a piece of tin missin and those are the fish from two days ago these things to get nice and nice and hard the slots are opening up even more because the fish is all dry and that's what you want in the fact that like like this one here is just dripping oil this way these were this is like a belly section here and that they're usually richer than the back the two halves of the of the fish sea and the that meat is not as rich as the belly why people always like the belly sections you know some people will be praying it within what you're bothering a trading or maybe selling a few of these your friends or something some people will say I want some bellies you know I'll pay extra for them are all you know it's just and and that's right for you to you know rich everybody does yep so that's what's happening yeah hopefully those ones I just cut will be in here and do it like this you know like okay the white smoke it's not not on not a lot of smoke it's just after sitting here for a couple of weeks the fish is going to be smoked does Matt back sometimes you have a problem with it it's kind of tasting to smoke so you know it's not a heavy smoke so that's uh that's all I can think of for cutting dry fish and you know like I say I have a video on how to cut dog food and a video on how to cut fish strips and and there are other people who make videos along the Yukon his guide down river I've seen a bunch of his videos and he makes one on how to cut this same dry fish and it may be good to watch that one his name's Yukon Jeff I'm sure just search on youtube you'll find them and he's from the lower river where there's it's a different climate down there and the fish are richer and things have done a little differently and everybody does things differently anyway the way to learn is just watch everybody that's how I every everything I'm doing is an accumulation of multiple people it's not just any single thing and then that I try a bunch of things and you know it's just it's a these are really good skills I want my kids to no matter what they do in life I want them to know how to how to do this because if anything ever happened and there was a need to you know get through a bad time or something and put up some dry fish and put up some you know loose me fish food for your dogs just whatever you know you have to know how to preserve food it's just a basic essential thing in some circumstances and and out here it's just life you know it's what we do every single year every single year for since I've been here since 1973 when I came here I have every single year put up dry fish with the dogs for myself you know you have to you have to do it in a way of life but it's just a good skill to for anybody to learn all my kids know how to do this stuff and and I really wish I could get my family to do this it's another video where I'm doing it by myself because it's hard to do this when you get kids running around and people wanted to cut fish and everybody's all you know that's why I do these things by myself but I want to do one of the next videos is like do a family video not necessarily show exactly how to do something and the techniques and all that sort of stuff that's really how to do a lot of people around but you know the family is going to be coming up here soon and it's efficient now that the Paul Chun motor started I'd like to just get a video just the family fun fun videos so thank you very much and hopefully we can keep putting these videos on

Channel: Stan Zuray

Views: 389,676

Rating: 4.7916765 out of 5

Keywords: Yukon Men, Yukon River, Yukon, Fishing, Stan Zuray, Zuray, Subsistence, Wilderness living, Tanana, alaska, Alaska

Id: LHye3J3Mk90

Length: 27min 59sec (1679 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2017