Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Are Bluegill worth messing with to eat?

Really...Lack of experience..Saw it right off..

But feel free to ask chit like this..

Amen from this corner.

Can only speak of the Alabama brim I'm familiar with. Ate hundreds probably. Nothing "fishy" about it. Goes for crappie too.

So you do eat the skin? I don’t know, never eaten a freshwater fish of any stripe any way besides filleted. I do know that the silver left on a catfish filet has a fishy taste if you don’t get it all off.

Lol, Turdcutter is back! Sorry I haven't ever lived somewhere where bluegills are a thing until just recently. Maybe you should regale us with your tennis shoe and pavement adventures. Maybe tell us about the senior discount at Denny's; you know, something you're an expert at.

Your funny...Sun Fish/Blue gills/crappy...Oh my..Are they worth it you ask?

Why fish if there not?

I miss you dude...

Yep. If you scale a brim, bluegill, shellcracker, whatever and rinse them well there's just no problem far as I'm concerned. I'm in the No Batter camp too. Pat dry, dip in milk with maybe a beaten egg added and roll in corn meal or a corn meal based seafood prep. Catfish ain't brim. And for any fish with a dark blood line I skin and strip that out. Lots of folks don't like fried bluefish, but if you filet and skin and cut out the blood line that's a good fish to fry FRESH. Talking up to 3 or 4 pounds.

I ain't scaling any fish.

To easy just to fillet and be done with it.

Filet them all, no heavy batter, nothing better.

So you do eat the skin? I don’t know, never eaten a freshwater fish of any stripe any way besides filleted. I do know that the silver left on a catfish filet has a fishy taste if you don’t get it all off. [/quote]


Yes, the skin (which is thin) fries up nice and crispy

Well, we know what you weren't doing during your absence, educating yourself. You do another stint in county? Still the cellblock push-up champion?

The skin, and the tail fin, fried crispy, are the best part.

Not much point of coating in corn meal or blend if you don't intend to eat the coated part.

Here's how I've done it since I was about 8 years old.

This is the way my family has fried them for 3 generations. After scaling and removing heads, leave all of the fins in place. Pan fry or deep fry until very brown and crispy.

When eating, first thing is gently pull out the fins and you will notice if fried brown enough, a row of tiny bones will come out attached to each fin. Discard these onto a separate plate for scraps. After fin bones are removed, use your fork to easily peel the meat away from the spinal connected bones.

This leaves large boneless bites even from small fish, works so easy even little kids can do it after being shown.
Enjoy

Never heard of filleting panfish before now. Why would you want to? The main reason we fillet bigger reshwater fish is because it's hard to cook a thick fish evenly in a pan.

Gets rid of the bones and skin. All that's left is tasty flesh.

Dip it and fry.

I've had bluegill on several occasions. It's strong tasting compared to Crappie, but it's edible.

I like the skin, nice and crispy. And if you can't easily de-bone a panfish at the table it's under cooked. And you get all the meat that way. (need to thoroughly cook freshwater fish, they often carry parasites.)

I ate a lot of skillet fried bluegills and sandbass growing up, good times!!

Ghost, Just noticed where you are at. May amuse you to know we don't even fillet smaller walleye. We do when they're too big to cook evenly, I like to leave the skin on. Easy to scale.