OK, so we just got back from 10 days out there, and it was incredible. First of my "gateway trips" that I will take each of the 6 kids on by themselves before they start high school. The second one will be in 2 years, and he is a fisherman. Well, I couldn't help noticing the THOUSANDS of trout out there, just begging to be caught. I was previously thinking of taking him to Glacier N.P., but now I think we'll come out there again.

I bought a book about fishing the eastern Sierra which looks ideal. I spent many many years fishing as a kid from Canada to Mexico, but haven't fished much in something like 15 years. The fishing part though I can do. What do we do when we get the trout?

I recall cleaning trout basically involving cutting off head and tail, gutting, skinning a few scales off and roasting the rest. Is that the best way to dress these little suckers? Is there any trick in the Sierra to what I do with the entrails, head and tail? Toss them in the lake?

What do I cook them with--some sort of oil and seasonings? Any advice is much appreciated.

There are certainly a lot of opinions about how to cook fish.

first, cleaning. no scaling, very simple:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZh6IMPvR_o&feature=related

You then cut off the head, if you want. I don't put the "stuff" into the water, as that contributes to pollution of the water, but prefer to leave out, away from camp, where it is easily found by birds.

A simple backcountry cooking process: wrap the fish in foil with a little oil/salt, perhaps wild onions. Place them on coals for 5 min a side or so.

My favorite is to throw them into a bag of cornmeal/salt, then fry in oil of choice. I prefer the crispiness over number 1.

To be honest, I'm about 10,000 fish past loving the taste, so I mainly catch and release these days.