Hints and Tips: Odds and Ends

• What Boat Can I Tow?

• DIY Fish Scaler

• Gyotaku Fish Prints

• Emergency Sunburn Treatment

• Weever Stings

• Building a Hot Smoker

What Boat Can I Tow?

Here is a brief summary of the current (2011) laws concerning towing on UK roads.

• A vehicle over 3.5 tonnes can tow a trailer and its load no bigger than 2.55 metres wide and 12 metres long. The overall length must not exceed 18 metres. (A Discovery is 2.5 tonnes so I think we are talking trucks here)
• A vehicle weighing 3.5 tonnes or less can tow a trailer no bigger than 2.55 metres wide (increased from 2.3 in 2011) and 7 metres long. This excludes drawbar and overhang such as outdrive, so the overall length can be a bit longer
• Do not exceeed the tow vehicle permissable tow weight (typically 85% of the towing vehicle kerb weight) - check the vehicle manufacturers specifications.
• A trailer must be fitted with overrun brakes if it exceeds 750kg gross weight or is more than 50% of the towing vehicle kerb weight.
•  Since 1982 all trailers, including unbraked ones, must be clearly marked with their maximum gross weight in kg. This may be checked at any time by the police at a weighbridge. Since 1st January 1997, all unbraked trailer plates must also show the year of manufacture
• Driving Licences issued after 1 January 1997 place further restrictions on towing trailers unless you pass an additional test - check your driving licence category.

The National Trailer and Towing Association (NTTA) have a detailed guide to towing as a free download on their web site www.ntta.co.uk Please check current legislation, do not assume this page is correct for every eventuality.

DIY Fish Scaler

First drink nine bottles of beer. Keep the caps. If you forget you will have to drink another nine bottles. With nine screws and a piece of scrap wood, you can make a useful fish scaler. Detailed instructions are here. To use the scaler, and preferably before gutting, scrape the bottle cap side against the side of the fish sweeping from from tail to head. Scales will go everywhere as they seem to ping off, so either do this in the garden or on the beach. Keep rinsing the fish and feeling the body - when it feels smooth and there are no rough scales present, your fish is ready for gutting and filleting.

Gyotaku Fish Prints

I came across this technique by accident in an art fair in California. Any angler trailing around after family on holiday will be immediately drawn to something fishy. I saw a stand, I think it was Fish Sarasota, and their prints were fabulous. Later, I found out more about the technique. Apparently it was developed by competitive sea anglers in Japan, long before photography was invented. They wanted a method of proving a size of fish when they returned (nothing changes, then). Presumably their trips were lengthy and before the days of refrigeration anyway.

They would smear the fish with ink and press paper on the fish, and a life-size imprint was made for posterity. That is all there is to it! The effects range from crude to dramatic art, have a look at the examples from Fish Sarasota here (note the prices!). You can have a go yourself - here's how. You will need:

• A fish (preferably with good fin and scale definition, like bass and bream)
• Tubes of water-based ink in various colours - blue, green and black, plus red and yellow for highlights
• Paper - Chinese rice paper or a soft handmade paper
• Paintbrushes
• Pins
• Small scraps of wood
• Patience

The art materials can be bought very cheaply from a good art shop. As Farnham has an art college there is a very good one in the High Street. The fish needs to be fresh and in good condition. Smaller ones are easier to start with. Clean the slime off, and dry with kitchen paper. Carefully open the fins, and pin them in a live position - this is where the scraps of wood come in handy. Let the fish dry for 30 minutes or so. Remove the pins and the fins should stay in position.

Now select the colours - you can either follow the actual fishy colours, or do something funky. If you search for gyotaku on the web you will find a lot of examples. Paint the fish all over with ink, including fins, but DON'T PAINT THE EYE.  Now take your piece of paper, lay it on the fish and without twisting or smudging, press gently all over so the fish is imprinted on the paper. Gently peel the paper off, and set aside to dry. If you have messed it up, paint the fish again and have another go with a clean piece of paper. When the print is dry, paint in the eye leaving the centre empty, and leave a spot to represent a shiny eye. If some parts have been missed, you can repair the print very carefully with a fine brush and very little ink.  Have a look at examples on the web, there are lots of good ideas to copy - you can even make a shoal out of multiple prints of a single fish. The example here is a simple print of a roach that had an accident - it's easier to work on small fish first.

If your fish was fresh and was not left lying around in a hot room, it will still be edible. Wash the ink off, and nobody will know. Waste not, want not!

Emergency Sunburn Treatment

If you are far out in the Channel suffering from a touch of sunburn and you have no sunburn lotion, there are alternatives. Most greasy substances will provide the protection the skin needs to help it to start the healing process. If you have some petroleum jelly in the toolbox you used for the battery connections, you can use it on the sunburned area.  Failing that, have a look in the lunchbox. Mayonnaise will work too. It might be worth nicking a sachet or two from the pub and keeping them in the first aid box.

Weever Stings

Weevers are the only fish commonly caught in UK waters that have stinging spines. They frequent shallow, sandy bottoms and are often caught by anglers targeting flatfish. A sting is very painful, but not life threatening unless there are other complications. One way to prevent the poison spreading and causing increased pain is to apply the hottest water the patient can stand on the place of the sting. This causes the poison to gel and prevents it from spreading within the body. Beach Life Guards carry thermos flasks of hot water for this purpose.

Building a Hot Smoker

Many foods can be smoked, and it is a great way to prepare fresh mackerel which are so plentiful in the summer. Cold-smoking involves smoking fish for many hours at a low temperature, and this preserves the food. Traditional smoked salmon you buy in a shop is cold smoked. Hot smoking cooks rather than preserves fish as it is smoked at a higher temperature for a much shorter time, so hot smoked fish must either be refrigerated and eaten within a few days, or frozen.

You can buy a hot smoker from the better tackle shops, but expect to pay £50 to £100 for what is really only a tin box. Here is how you can make one very simply, that works just as well. You will need

• 2 or 3 clean empty short tins, such as those that contained tuna or salmon
• A deep plain metal roasting tin (Tesco sell a Value one for 68p!)
• A flat metal baking sheet large enough to cover it (or buy another Tesco pan and invert it, securing with four bulldog clips around the edge)
• A shallow grill rack that fits inside the roasting tin
• 5 ordinary house bricks

You will also need some methylated spirits, matches, hardwood sawdust (smoke dust, available cheaply from the same shops that sell smokers), and something to cook! Fish taste much better if soaked in seasoned brine for 30 minutes or so beforehand, then dried with a paper towel. See the recipes page for a good brine recipe.

You need to do this outside, so find a sheltered place preferably with a paving slab you can use as your base.

1. Place four bricks in a square to support the roasting tin
2. Place two tablespoons of sawdust in the bottom of the roasting tin
3. Place the grill rack over the sawdust
4. Put your fish or meat on the grill rack, skin side down if they are fillets
5. Place the baking sheet over baking tray to act as a lid, and weight down with the fifth brick.
6. Half fill the empty cans with meths. Depending on the size of the roasting tin, you may need two or three.
7. Put the cans under the roasting tin, and light them.
8. Cook for approximately 20 minutes or whatever your recipe advises. If the lighted meths runs out too soon, refill and relight with care. Make sure there is no chance the bottle of meths could ignite while you are refilling.
9. Allow to cool…then eat!

A word on sawdust: this makes a big difference to the taste of the smoked food. Avoid pine sawdust, or sawdust contaminated with paint or preservatives. It is worth paying for smoke dust – only £2 or £3 – it will last for many smokings and you can get oak, hickory, maple or other flavoured sawdust that would be difficult to find from any other source. You can buy sawdust for smoking from a tackle shop that stocks smokers, or specialist barbeque shops.