A Smoked Fish Road Trip to the Great Lakes

I tasted some of the best smoked fish of my life on the West Coast of Michigan—and this is coming from a guy who grew up on smoked fish in Florida

The Leelanau Peninsula juts into Lake Michigan on the west coast of Michigan, just north of Traverse City. The Peninsula is home to several very good wineries that make Germanic-style Rieslings and to fruit orchards laden with apples, pears, peaches, and awesome cherries. In the tiny town of Leland, known as Fishtown, my wife and I recently visited Carlson’s Fresh & Smoked Fish, a shack on the Leland River where it meets the Lake. It was a little smoked fish road trip.

Owned by Nels Carlson (a 5th generation Carlson) and Mike Burda, I met Burda as he was loading and unloading the smokehouse. It was a simple outbuilding with a hole in the ground burning logs and large steel racks on wheels loaded with fish.

A Smoked Fish Shack That Also Smokes Turkey

That’s Burda shown above. They smoke Lake Trout, Whitefish, Salmon, and chubs (that’s a chub I am holding in the photo at the top of this story). They even smoke turkey. Carlson’s makes a delightful spread they call Fish Paté from smoked Whitefish and Lake Trout blended with cream cheese, half & half, lemon juice, and garlic powder They also make fish sausage, a tasty mixture of Whitefish, Lake Trout, garlic, red pepper flakes, and some other seasonings in a natural casing. Burda says “Whitefish alone would have great flavor but when we mix it with Lake Trout it has excellent moisture from the higher fat content in trout.”

While we were on this smoked fish road trip, one of Burda’s fishermen rolled up in his pickup loaded with tubs full of fresh Lakers and Whitefish on ice. He told me his name was Bear. In the photo above, that’s Bear with a Whitefish on the left and a Laker on the right, both more than 5 pounds. Pro tip: Fish is best kept directly in crushed ice because there is a thin layer of ice-cold water between the ice and the fish that keeps the fish moist and fresh.

A Wet Brine Improves Smoked Fish

To prep his fish for smoking, Burda does a wet brine with around 8% salt by weight (nothing else) in the refrigerator for a minimum of 15 hours. This yields about 3.5% salt level in the fish. Burda then smokes the fish with sugar maple that’s been seasoned for at least a year. Michigan law says smoked fish must be smoked to an internal temperature of 145°F for a minimum of 30 minutes. However, Burda says he always smokes longer and hotter to get the golden color they on the skin, usually finishing the fish to an internal temp of around 165 to 175°F.

A Taste Of Everything

We bought some of everything at Carlson’s and gorged on it at their picnic table behind the shack. The fish was as good as anything I’ve ever smoked. And I grew up on smoked mullet in Florida.

If you’re intrigued by this smoked fish road trip, try your hand at smoking fish. You can get started with my simple recipe for Hot Smoked Fish, which works well with most fish, including salmon. For something similar to Carlson’s smoked fish paté, try my recipe for Smoked Fish Dip. It works with salmon, chubs, and other fish and makes a fantastic appetizer with toasted baguette slices, crackers, bagel chips, or spread on a fresh bagel crackers.

You can also find several recipes for smoked fish in my latest book, “The Meathead Method” called “The only book on outdoor cookery you’ll ever need” by food-science wizard Alton Brown.