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

We had a sand bass population explosion in a popular lake a few years ago. Would you believe the people up here considered them trash fish? I had a ball using light tackle, a big one turns sideways and you know you've got something. And ate well.

Good Lord!!!! Folks are missing out on some good grub: fried sandbass, cornbread, coleslaw, iced tea...Mmmm!!

That's interesting, my circle has always filleted everything, except stream trout. Just gut them and even leave the head on.

Never heard of anyone leaving walleye skin on. Why would you?

Some fish has to do with how you prepare it.

Back in college me and my roommate paid for beer and boat gas selling gaspagew ( drum) to Vietnamese fish market. Who knows what they sold them as. Flaky white meat. Has a blood line that needs to be cut out. Freshwater redfish if you will.

Good gosh, sorry, but have not read all 6 pages.



But it taste fishy??????? WTF is it supposed to tasts like??????????????

I grew up eating wild caught catfish & about all the pan fish. Scaled, gutted, SKIN ON & BONE IN. It established to me what fish taste like at an early age, late 1950's-early 1960's. Times passed & farm raised fish became popular, the flavor faded. Folks de-boned, filleted, skinned & washed the flavor away.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a good meal. But fishy tasting gets my attention, not swampy, but flavor, flavor that so many are missing. I rest.

Speaking the perch you have up north, you certainly are, Ghost.

We incorrectly call the little sunfishes collectively perch down south.

And in East Texas crappie are generally called white perch.

When it's all over, I guess it all depends on how hungry you are. I've eaten Jackfish a time or two. Rather strong taste but If you can get the spiny bones out, it'll eat. Forget the technical name but their kinda like a Northern Pike but not near as large.

No.....

About the best pan fish there is. They are easy to dress, tasty, with firm, flaky flesh.

Many years ago before the advent of good fillet knives and electric knives most, including me, were quite happy scaling sunfish, crappie, bass, white bass, walley etc and rolling in cornmeal and cooking and eating with the skin on. I occassionaly do the same at times now. As kids we would love eating the tails fried with the fish.

I prefer flounder broiled in the oven and slathered in melted butter and lemon after cutting across in two directions leaving a diamond pattern. They are scaled before cooking and the skin is eaten. They have their own unique flavor cooked this way, as lobster, shrimp and king crab do and are delicious.

I have also scaled and crosscut bass and white bass and cooked inside a bbq pit over charcoal and mopped them with butter and lemon. It reminds me of the taste of broiled flounder. Unreal good, Kid.

I plan on doing that again in the future and seasoning with toneys or old bay.

There is a secret to good fried fish. Drop in 375 degree grease and pull it when it floats if using a deep fryer. You want a crispy outside and moist center. The skin leaves no fishy taste. The red blood/fat line left under the skin does that on stripers and such. Ive never seen it on bass, crsppie, speckled trout or gills. Redfish can need trimming.

I have never eaten flounder in a resturant that was woth eating, btw.

Bon appetit, Kid.

PS. I sear the skin side down scales and all on salmon. No fishy taste on wild fish.

That what y’all call shoepiq? Chupiq? Grinnnel here. Bowfin.

I have eaten and enjoyed fried grinnel of a couple of pounds.

I’ve only whacked em with a machete and thrown back to the gar and turtles.

If you know someone who knows how to get the meat off a buffao fish without the wing bones through the meat you can meal and deep fry it and really hurt yourself. Delish.

Kid, you can do this with scaled bass, white bass and walleye also. Its a real palate pleaser.

He might be speaking of pickerel. He mentioned they were like northern pike but smaller, sounds like a pickerel. I've heard bowfin called dogfish. In the old Ozark's walleye were often called jack pike.

You got that right. You need to take an eight of an inch off under the silver skin too, down the outside bloodline. On a nice cat that will be a couple inches wide.

Not necessary on small cats in clear water. In lakes with a lot of shad, esp threadfin, you better trim heck out of fat cats.

This^^^.

I’m curious now and I’m going to have to try it. Almost went perch fishing tonight to try it out, I’ve got one pond that it’s not unusual to catch goggleyes and bluegill that are about a pound each when I’m bass fishing. I was close to digging some worms and going to gather me a dozen of them up but decided to go catfishing instead so me and my little boy are at the lake with the lantern soaking cut shad.

I lived in Alaska for a decade and cooked a thousand salmon skin on but never ate any of the skin. I even scrape the grey off the outside of the filet to avoid that bait bucket flavor.

I catch drums pretty regular while catfishing, usually scale them and cut for bait. After reading on here that some folks down TX/LA way eat them I filleted a couple and cut the red out of them. Who would have thought, when fried they taste exactly like fish. My wife likes the stones out of their heads too for whatever reason.