While I was writing last week’s column about some of the less popular species that we can catch through the ice across the Sunset Country Region, I had a feeling I was forgetting something. After the column came out, one of my friends sent me a message asking, “What about burbot?”
The burbot, a fish of many names, including ling, mariah, eel pout, and lawyer, is quite common in many lakes around the region, especially Lake of the Woods, where walleye anglers catch them frequently throughout the winter.
Burbot are mostly a bottom feeding, cold water fish that spends most of their time in deep water. It is rare to catch them in open water. I have only ever caught a couple incidentally out of the boat while I’ve been lake trout fishing. It is common to catch them through the ice and they seem to become extra active at night.
Unlike most species, burbot actually spawn under the ice during the middle of winter on top of shoals, which is where walleye anglers most often make contact with them. When they are on these pieces of structure, they actually become quite aggressive and easy to catch.
Years ago, when I was hosting a TV show, my friend Sean McAughey and I decided we would film a show, highlighting how to catch and then cook burbot. They have a reputation of being the lobster of freshwater, because their flesh, when cooked, somewhat resembles that of lobster.
I had lined up a chef to come out on the ice with us to cook them because we had never done it before, but he bailed out at the last minute. He was coming from Winnipeg and after he thought about what my plan was, to cook burbot out on the ice, “something came up.”
We went out anyway and figured we would just do it ourselves. I asked a friend from Minnesota that I remember raving about how good burbot are to eat how he prepared them and he told me there are a few ways to do it but the easiest was to simply boil it in 7-Up and then dip it in butter.
We went out, caught a number of fish and then tried his method and you know what? It wasn’t all that bad. I haven’t made a habit out of eating burbot, mostly because it’s easy to go out and catch walleye, perch or crappie if I want to have fish for dinner but it was very similar to eating lobster.
If you find areas where they are, burbot are actually easy to catch. They seem to prefer eating close to or on the bottom and the best method we found was to ball up a couple of minnows on a heavier 3/4 ounce jigging spoon and then bang it and shake it on the bottom. I can remember fishing after dark out in the centre section of Lake of the Woods when I was younger and catching all kinds of them. They do have a strong sense of smell I think because it seemed like if you didn’t have any meat on your spoon or jig, you wouldn’t catch any.
I can remember when we cleaned the ones that we kept, their stomach contents included a lot of crayfish, with some rocks mixed in, which they evidently pick up when they are slurping up the crayfish.
If you want a new species to try and catch, burbot fishing can be action packed and they do get to be quite large, with ten-pound-plus fish not uncommon. They do look kind of like an eel, which can be scary, but they don’t have any teeth or sharp spines that can harm you.
