A good tuna substitute !

As a kid in San Diego I always enjoyed tuna noodle casserole dishes and of coarse tuna salad sandwiches, but tuna has a lot of mercury, pcbs etc.   I live in Montana and toss most of the fish I catch back in, and there obviously aren't any fish like tuna here.  I have found a substitute for tuna that doesn't have anywhere near the contamination levels that tuna has. 
Sardines !   Before you say yuck, the ones I use are Reeses boneless skinless sardines packed in olive oil.  They don't have the guts still in them either.  They have more of the good omega fats than tuna and some tunas can have up to 40 times more mercury than sardines. 
Here is a quick and easy tuna noodle casserole type of dish using sardines as a tuna substitute.

1 box of Farmhouse brand of herb and butter noodles, (no preservatives), Cook as directed and when close to being done add a hand full of canned lima beans and a can of the Reeses boneless skinless sardines, (drain out the olive oil first, I pour the oil on my dogs dry food, she loves it !) Next as per the directions, it must sit a minute or two to thicken.  At that point put in about a tablespoon full of hot Madras curry powder. While stirring the curry powder in try to break up the sardines up into small bits.    This is really good and much better health-wise than the tuna casserole that Mom used to feed us.  I think it tastes better than tuna anyway, now if we can't get these sardines and end up using tuna, I don't even taste that bland tuna anymore.  The curry cuts the strongness of the sardine flavor.  If you try this recipe let me know what you think of it.  I've become a sardine advocate !

Sardines, Anchovies, Herring, and Smelt are all awesome fish to eat. Just have to know how to prepare 'em. Looks like a nice recipe I gotta try out. Thanks for the post!

Z

Therickers,
You know what else works good... well about any fish. I use salmon and make a salmon salad sandwich. I don't know what the salmon deal is there for ya but I do known that you can catch walleye there in your state. A nice walleye filet seasoned and baked, grilled, steamed whatever. let it chill and proceed as your recipe. LOVE IT. people think its a waste to use salmon like that but hell I am the kind of guy that batters and deep fries morel mushrooms, cause I can... and there around.

The only salmon we have here are Kokanee, the little landlocked Rocky Mountain  salmon. I'm not sure if Montana ever had any sea run salmon, lot of waterfalls and long distances. I think they have easier places to get to to do the spawning. We do have a native rainbow species in the Kootanai drainage, it's called the redband, very rare.  All other rainbows are imports.
I'm a bit partial to smallies, they seem to be gaining ground in the Clark Fork and in the Lower Flathead. I have no issue with hooking up to a squawfish as they don't seem to tire easily, they are a blast to catch and they are tough buggers and generally survive well after releasing.

Awesome pic!! Where is it???  I can just imagine arrowing a big elk and having it tumble down to water's edge---you'd have to camp there until it was all eaten!

I can just imagine arrowing a big elk and having it tumble down to water's edge---you'd have to camp there until it was all eaten!

Bow hunting Elk... now that's what I'm talking about! Never done it before but sounds like a lot of fun.

Z

Our favorite spot in the 1990's was Long Island in Willapa Bay----archery only, no vehicles allowed on the island, 5 campgrounds.  We took canoes up to Lewis Slough on the north end and hunted the clearcuts (no clearcutting since about 1999) and one of us would usually get an elk and share 400 pounds of meat!!  LOTS of bears on the island.  Good trolling for silvers on the way up.

Awesome pic!! Where is it???  I can just imagine arrowing a big elk and having it tumble down to water's edge---you'd have to camp there until it was all eaten!

growing up in these here steep and brushy parts....we learned to only shoot at game ABOVE YOU and the truck!!! yup, hunt uphill! LOL!

The picture is of The Lower Flathead River and it was taken about 8 river miles below Kerr Dam near Polson Montana.  Here is another picure of the same river about 30 miles below Kerr Dam.  I floated by a mama elk milking her baby.

Kallitype-

Back in the early 90s a friend and I kayaked out to Long Island to hike around the old growth and have a picnic lunch. After beaching the boats above the high tide mark, we intercepted a logging trail and followed it until we got to a patch of big trees. There was a game trail (of sorts ) going down in to this swamp where there were some cedars of massive diameter. (As I recall, all of them were missing their tops.) There was one stump that was about 8' high and 10' across. We climbed up the buttressed roots and sat down to eat and observe.

We finished our lunches and were sitting and talking quietly when I realized I could hear snoring (!!!) underneath me !   Todd must have heard it at the same time, cause he looked down and then at me and his eyes got real big! I'm sure my long hair was standing on end- at least it felt like it! I think we were both holding our breaths as we packed our bags and quietly slithered down the stump. It was all I could do to keep from running back up that trail that we had followed, which I now realized look more like a round tunnel through the brush, than a real trail. We about exploded once we were out of earshot.

Great story!  Was it a big boar blackie???  You might have been in the old-growth stand?

   I was with my wife in 1987, bowhunting Long Island for elk/deer.  We were snaking along at dawn near Lewis Slough, on a game trail.  Heard what sound like squirrels rustling in the leaves, but noisier----turned out to be a pair of cubs.  Mama started "chuffing "and popping her choopers, we backed out of there in a cold sweat.
   Only had one hunting trip on the island where we saw no bears.  There used to be a ranger at the station who kept the bears "thinned out"  but he retired and the population quickly built up.
   

We were in the old-growth; we never saw the beast and were happy with that.