Don Phillipson wrote:

2. Brining is prerequisite to smoking (strong brine
for cold smoke, mild brine for hot smoke). Before
other cooking methods, it seems likely to make
the food too salty.

Thank you! I would have ruined a perfectly good
pan of trout.

Why both olive oil and butter? (I prefer bacon fat to
either for pan-fried trout, but fry eggs etc. in OO
rather than butter.)

I mix extra virgin olive oil with butter to cut down
on the butter's expense and fat. If you mix it
just right, you think it is just butter (about 2
parts butter to one part OO). I use it on my fried
eggs all the time.

Thank you for the tips!
-T