Canning walleye, perch and crappie

[Therapist]

Being an old boy from Missouri,  one of the traditions in the Show me State is to bottle suckers.  The old saying is " When the dogwoods are in bloom, the suckers are running( spawn run).  In all the streams and rivers of Missouri, the folks would go out, scoop them up with nets and either salt em down in barrels or bottle them ( Sound familier, like the Pioneers on the Provo ).  From what I know,  they gutted them, removed head, tail, and fins, chunked em, then pressure canned em.  The pressure processing would soften the bones to where they were edible also.  Don't know what they did to prepare the meal, but that was the process.  I know that the early pioneers utilized the sucker run on the Provo as did the Indians before them.  Madsen Boat camp on the lower Provo was the primary place where the fish were caught and processed.  Hundreds of barrels of salted sucker were hauled to the Bishops Storehouse in SLC to be distributed in the winter.   I believe that this all took place in JUNE,  what do you know,  giving rise to our favorite JUNE SUCKER ha, ha!

So,  get Cowboy Pirate and Cookie to catch you a bunch of suckers up north, and give em a try.  Have never eaten one my self,  but they are supposed to be pretty good!!!!