I remember as a kid reading an ancient National Geographic -- 1930s ? -- with a story on the Hudson shad fishery. There were great black and white photos of people standing around a big bonfire with shad nailed to planks (hickory? white cedar?).
The fillets were crossed with two pieces of bacon nailed down at each end. Looked tasty.
The suggestion to "eat the plank" remind me of the f.Funniest fish receipe I ever read. I saw it on usenet a few years ago. Someone asked if carp was edible and one reply gave a recipe that went something like:
Cover carp in a layer of fresh horse manure
bake for two hours at 350
crack open the manure shell and feed the carp to a cat
eat the manure
bury the cat
second funniest was in "Men's Lives" where a bayman explained why he didn't eat striped bass: "Fights like the Sunday New York Times and tastes like one too. Only with sauce on it."