Home Forums Fishing Freshwater is there a fish you won't keep or a fish you always keep?

I refuse to kill a smallmouth of any size. I also don't keep crappie 15" or bigger cause they lay so many eggs. On the other hand I never release a walleye that will keep or a spotted bass big enuff to make a sandwich. Walleyes because they are delicious and spots because they are really good and they don't get big enuff in our lakes to make a good sportfish. Spots have no size limit on my home lake and the creel limit is 20!

I wont keep any fish with fins.


Ingwewife likes to kill and eat brookies.

Ingwe, so you eat lots of eels?

I don't keep any bass over about a pound and a half, and eat very few bass at all. Panfish (bluegills and crappes) are too fun to catch, and just too good to eat to look much further. I won't kill tiny walleyes either, but anything from a foot up to about 24 inches goes in the pan. 'Wish I could say I catch lots that are bigger than that and get released, but that's not usually the case.

No eelpout or dogfish will ever come into my boat. They're just too damned ugly.

I'll eat all the Burbot that Gophergunner throws back, love those ugly critters but rarely get to go fish for them. Always kept most any and all flatheads, channels, and blues growing up. Crappie that were bigger than my hand went in the boat if my Grandad was in charge. And bass got a pass, Dad was an avid bass fisherman and taught me to let them grow. Saugeye went on the string if they were legal length, as did walleye if we got to go trolling at the lake.

Nowadays I like to keep a handful of rockfish, a lingcod if we're lucky, maybe one small halibut, and about a dozen salmon per year. I usually smoke about 4-5 trout per winter that I catch ice fishing and we have one or to pike fries per year so I keep a dozen or so slimers for that plus a couple for the pickle jars.
Anything else gets released or given away to friends or family. We don't eat too much fish and I don't like cleaning and dealing with the dang things.

We always keep every Columbia River springer that we catch (as long as it's fin clipped). It's just like eating a self buttered fish.

When I get the chance, we keep bluegills.. We also eat brookies..
When we get the chance to salmon fish, we like those.. Other than that, we eat few fish..

No I eat lots of the kind of fish I can catch here, shellfish and crustaceans. If it has claws or a shell I generally like it a lot!

No wonder you're always grumpy !

Not many fish I won't keep and eat...all depends on who was willing to take me on the boat with them.

One buddy is real involved in bass tourneys, and if he caught me killing ANY bass to take home and eat, well...I'd probably be made into chum for the bigger guys.

I love me some panfish.

Trout are not high on my list of fish to eat, but I'm not above smoking a couple here and there.

Keep- legal walleyes, panfish, legal salmon.
Throw back- everything else.

I'll never keep a Muskie, only thing I fish for so...

I will not keep a bass , always keep perch.

just caught some nice flatheads. 72#, 50#, and 18#. Kept all. Turn all big blue cats back. Keep small bass out of our lake. My buddy wanted me to take 1000 out this year. Still working on them..

Bass tournaments kill more bass than people keeping a few to eat and that's a fact in the south. I have seen 20 - 30 dead fish after a tournament weigh in, many times in the warm water months. Fish caught in summer are hard to keep alive in even the most advanced live wells. And fish caught deep have to be fizzed or they belly up as soon as they go back into the water. Tournament Bass fisherman don't own the lakes and fish like they think they do. Keep all the bass you want.

I never keep cat fish. They almost always taste like mud. I gave up on cleaning and cooking them. I catch lots of small ones when panfishing and they always get that snotty boogery crap up and down your line. Hate them things. I can see the sport in the big ones though and I'm guessing that caught somewhere else they are good to eat but I have ate them in restaurants also and I didn't like them there either.

I'd throw back any catfish I caught. I like fishing for bass and sunfish and will keep those if good size for eating/legal.
Wife likes trout so we keep those too.

I hate to eat stream trout. They taste awful. Trout that run up into streams out of lake Superior are different, they eat good, real good. Siskowit lakers are just grease balls. Native redfin lakers and Brook Trout out of Nipigon are superb. Bass under 3 lbs are good. Walleyes are good Cats out of cold water are good. Northerns are usually good. Panfish are good if you can get them big enough to be worth messing with. Eelpout are good. Bullheads out of cold water are good and truly gourmet when smoked.

Up until last summer, I never kept fresh water drum. They were scrappers and fought like the devil, but my Brother in law fried some up and I have to say, it was very good eating. Sooo, now a good size drum comes home with me if'n I catch one.

I don't keep trout. Don't like to eat them.

I always keep silver carp. You can't keep enough of them to reduce the population.

Silver carp,, are those the ones that jump in your boat?

Oh, I'll keep all the ones I don't catch on his boat. He does own the boat...haha

Yes, silver carp are the jumpers. It is an experience to be tooling down the river at 35 or 40 mph and get hit in the chest by a 6 lbs. silver carp. I can easily see why the f&g guys have chain-link fence barriers in the boat to protect themselves from silver carp hits.

Somethin' wrong with you...

I don't really care for Trout either,,, or Salmon for that matter,,, although my buddy brings me a fresh caught fillet once in a while that go down pretty easy but I don't want a steady diet of it.
I keep any decent sized panfish....

Bluegills, redeyes and walleye are keepers here. As long as they're legal and not too small.

Small and Largemouth Bass go back.

Catfish are 50/50, I don't care for the big ones to eat.

^^To add to the above, I don't care what people keep though, long as they eat it.

What I really hate, is when a "proud" bass fisherman will put a dying/dead bass back in the water. Like they wouldn't dare be caught keeping one of their trophy fish, and would rather see it floating that have someone think they kept/ate it.

Redeyes are one of my favorites. Especially good out of cool clear mountain streams! With a side of fried taters and cornbread whew, that's a meal fit for a king.

I like trout but I would take a mess of good sized bluegills, crappie or redeyes over a trout any day of the week.

seal, you have that right.. Brookies are ok, only because we have no good eating fish in this country..

Very interesting. Some fish I never heard of. As for me, I love blue gills if they are big enough. I keep most any fish, even sheapshead ( freshwater drum) now and again. They are better than store bought crap for $8 lb. in a box. I will keep smallmouth, nice sweet taste, better than walleye actually. Most of my fish are small channels cats. I smoke them for my arthritis in my back. Fish oil all but takes my pain away and channel cats are very oily. Don't like fried channel cats though. Walleye don't go back. I guess the only fish I won't keep is a musky, dogfish , Gar fish, eel pout ( Eel pout are for Viking fans)

For the table,sunfish, crappies, perch and walleye are the best. Pike go into ground patties or the smoker. Salmon and occasional trout get grilled or smoked. Joining them in the smoker are spring rin suckers. haven't figured out how to catch whitefish yet, but they smoke good and are rumored to eat goods too. Haven't tried but other yet.

Bass, pike over 10, walleye over 4 (excrept from the Columbia river), and murkiest don't come into the boat. Lake trout too -fun to catch but not to eat. Grayling are not my type.

Sure I'm forgetting someone's favorite, but I made myself hungry-going to thaw some salmon for tomorrow!

Crappie and Stripers are the only fish I keep.

I agree, strippers are very good if you know how to clean them, white bass are the same. Gotta get that red meat out of the fillet.

Amen, trout are for the tourists out here

I am not a fan of eating fish,especially freshwater fish, though I love to catch them. That being said, I had some walleye this spring for the first time and would be happy enough to eat more, given the chance.

I will keep trout, big bluegills and some cats. I release all my bass though unless it's a striper the that will be consumed

I target crappies and big bluegill for eating, and I set trottlines for 20lb+ flatheads. I'll fish for other species, but just for fun.

I can't think of any of our freshwater fish that aren't worth eating. I have fished some lakes where the rainbows have a swampy taste to them.

Since marrying a woman who is allergic to fish and having a daughter who is also allergic to fish, my catch and keep days are pretty rare. My son and I both love fish, but I'd just as soon let them go so I don't have to clean them, but my son gives me the stink-eye these days when I tell him I threw back what I caught that evening.

So, to keep him happy and both of us well fed, the 2 nice walleyes I boated last night are now in the fridge, awaiting my wife's skills with a hot frying pan.

We'll be eating good this weekend.