Nothin' like a mess of honest-to-goodness pounder bluegills on a 70* day in north Idaho.
Launch was low so I grabbed the kayak.

The cutco fillet knife ain't half bad either...

TWO THUMBS UP!

That ain't simple, that's Grandiose!!

Damn good eating.I can eat a pile of them.

Yessir.

That’s a meal.

Won’t be too much longer and the rains will stop. The small creek i like to float willl be ready.
It flooded several times this year. Curious to know what holes filled in, what logs jams are there now.


It’s full of yearling bass. 1# cats and red bellies.

The red bellies don’t get big enough to filet. Cook em whole.

Awesome!!!

Finally a good thread.

Got myself a few good spots here on the impoundments at TVA. Set the kayak out.

Good eats there.

Yessir.

You’re living like a king. I’m envious. 😜

Many of us have been waiting 10+ years for this moment.

#amen

These threads keep the good guys here

#oldschool24fire

I keep saying i want a kayak.

Fraid I’d be top heavy.

I’ll stick with John boats.

I want a pontoon style.

Good stuff my man!

With a outrigger like in Hawaii?

Yellow cat bait.

Great bucket of gils right there!

Nice size bluegill!

Same as. Tabby?

Had to Google that, I’ve never heard them called anything but yellow and flathead.

Ops and mots also.

Opelousas Cat, Eel Cat, Spotted Cat, Goushon Cat.

Looks like mud cat and Mississippi cat as well. Wtf

You'd be just fine, they're really stable little boats.

I'm a pretty big guy myself at 6'6'' 230 and I've never had a moment where I felt the thing was unstable.
CL $125 score from about 8 years ago and it's a solid go-to for Spring fishing..

Wilderness Pemlico 135T (two seater)

Channel cat are awesome eating.

Broomb,

I appreciate it.

But I’m 6’2” 280.

Only time I’ve kayak / canoe is the commercial size Kayaks you rent for the day.

Eat the cheeks.

Cornmeal. Flour is for chicken.

Me too Jim. I’m too old to fall in. 🤠

Lately, we have been slamming the yellow perch

This is only after 1.5 hours.

Only thing better are Crappie!

Amen!!!

I’ll take yellow cat over channel and Crappie.

I’ll repectfully disagree.

Crappie / white perch are something else.

These open soon and are awesome to eat.

Man, we need to throw down like Bobby Flay. Lol

Old school.

Grillin and chillin.

Bobby flaf. Other dude in overalls.

Awesome Broomd.

Mini jigs? Meal worms? Red Wigglers? Garden earthworms? Fly rod poppers?

What's your secret?

Red worms on a small gold wire aberdeen, no weight, small float about 4' up.
Work the railroad trestles....
The big crappie and bass are a bonus. I chuck the bass back.

We call those tittie bream.......crickets are our go-to live bait.

Haha. Does anybody know how to scale a bream
anymore? When's the last time anybody saw a
fish scaler in the fishing section at the store?
I use a spoon myself, but fish scalers used to be
pretty common

Need to go try for a few bream myself

Brooms great catch awesome meal in itself but throw in some grilled elk steak with that and you.ll have your own " surf and turf". Mb

sure beats working! Fish look great.

I can't wait till I can go fishing......

I usually use those for bait but big ones like that are pretty darn good eating.

We’re in good shape here insofar as the fishing is going. Shad are finally on the bank and the blues are coming up on the flats in the evenings chasing them. Been pretty good fishing for them the last two nights. Even been getting a bonus saugeye here and there on catfish rigs.

Crappie have been weird this year but my wife caught a 17 1/4” that weighed a shade over 3lb last weekend.

I’m dragging the boat out to pull plugs for Saugeye after work today if the wind doesn’t come up too bad.

Crappie, red ear, bluegill, sauger, are all first rate eating fish. Channel cats are good too, so are bass, but the panfish are usually your best eating.

Love a mess of pan fish! Growing up in WI we focused on them in the spring and winter (ice fishing). The "keeper" criteria was always, "will the fillet cover a slice of wonder bread"?

Love me some 'eyes !

Nice.

Cool, thanks for the info. I always did good in SoCal mountains with the meal worms, bur reds worked too when needed.

Pend Oreille? Coeur d'Alene?

I kick myself sometimes for not getting up that way when I lived down south of that area in E WA.

Nice. What water?

South end of CDA Lake, Rocky Point/Chatcolet and east area....

Thumbs up..

I didn't know the 'gills were that big in that lake or perhaps I'd not be kickin' myself.

Damn nice bucket of eats

Those have some shoulders! love to catch them on crickets

I'm about 6'2" and close to 250. I have a 10.5' Perception kayak. I don't think I could tip the thing over if I tried. VERY stable. The seat is actually fairly comfortable, so it's easy to sit in all day. Getting in and out of it, though..... that can start to get difficult.

A friend of mine who is a much bigger fisherman than I am can filet a bluegill. Even the ordinary size ones, not just the bigguns. I never could do it, and I always scaled them. I saw a video on an easy way to filet, and I haven't tried it yet. I need to find that video again...

arrgghh you filleted them ...noooo.

rake the scales off, cut the heads off and gut them. then fry them. the fins come out like potato chips. fillets are for pu$$ies. these are right out of my pond.

GrandDad always used a butter knife to scale them when I was a kid. I remember he laughed at me because I bought a fish scaler at Gibson’s Discount Center. Also remember all the old time bait houses sold them when I was a kid.
If I remember correctly, I paid $ .29 cents for mine in about 1969.

I just had a flashback to my childhood. There's no telling how many tons of those I caught with grey crickets that Dad cooked up just that way. Dad cooked the fish, not the crickets.

I remember eating fried fish tails when I was a kid fishing with my grandfather! Been a long time.

I have traded backstrap for perch and crappie.

Have you guys even had properly cleaned yellow cat? I’m doubting it.

I scale em with a spoon.

Gibson’s.

Several around here. They had all the cool fishing stuff.

Last Gibson’s i went to was in Irving Tx. Seems that one stayed open longer than the rest.
My grandmother lived there. Last time i was there. 10 yrs ago for her funeral. It was a Mexican grocery.
Made fresh tortillas. My goodness. They were good.

I think their are only two Gibson’s left in TX now. One in Kerville and one in Weatherford. We had two big ones in Abilene when I was growing up. My Aunt managed the toy department in the biggest one. Mom would drop us off with her in her department when she went shopping. But I’d always run away to the Hunting and Fishing department. 🤠

Gibson's used to be pretty cool stores. About like DG but with hunting and fishing stuff. IIRC, the main one we went to even had a few guns.

Have you seen them finally getting the Baker Hotel refurbished in Mineral Wells?

I'll take yellow perch or walleye over all of the above.

Never had either since their not native down here.

They tried stocking some hybrid “Saugeyes” in one of the local lakes, but they couldn’t survive the heat here, I guess.

My Mom and Dad used to fish Possum Kingdom all the time.

It’s been about a year since I’ve driven through Mineral Wells. I usually go that way when I visit family in DFW. Driven right by it many a time. That’s the one they claim is haunted.

The Gibson family own an entire peninsula here on Cedar Creek Lake. The home is huge but strangely modest...just a huge compound where in years past the whole bunch would gather. Seldom see anyone there anymore. Maybe a mile around the shoreline from us.
I laugh at all the sporting goods I bought there when I was a kid thru eighteen. Shotguns, rifles and all the cheap ammo you could ever want.

Fished and skied all over that lake growing up. We used to dive off of some of the smaller cliffs in HS. Beautiful lake!

Yep. Greatest Sporting Good Store Ever when I was growing up. Wished Fuggin Walmart hadn’t put them out of business. 😡

I've fished Cedar Creek before. Good Sand Bass lake.

This.........

Add French fries, grits and slaw............holiday eatn!

I'll take red snapper, wahoo, ling, golden tilefish over any freshwater fish, though yellow cats are good. Going to make some fresh swordfish today.

Nice thread!

What's the best fish? I haven't run into anything I didn't like yet. Some differences but I just like fish.

The dang house fixer up stuff has impacted my fishing time severely.

It's hard to find big bluegiills.

Yep, the yellow perch are king of the freshwater fish for eating. Walleyes are damn fine and far bigger, but the perch reigns.

We fish the flatheads(what y’all call yellow cats?) here. Best of the cats, and prepared right, will give crappie a run for their money. Little fresh red onion, some dill pickle slices fried just like the fish, and some fried potatoes. Add a jug of sun-brewed sweet tea, and the best part of summer is ready to go.

Flatheads make folks throw channel cat to the dog. Hard to beat a feast of fried crappie and flathead filets. And cornmeal is for fish. Not flour.

Perch reigns as bait, for yellow cat.

There's still a Gibson's in Weatherford, TX

I love fishing threads. So much I relate to.

I dumped the boat in this morning in fog so thick visibility was about 50 yards. Pulled plugs around for a while in the mist and drizzle and a perfect walleye chop. Managed 6 sandbass, 3 saugeye, one crappie, and one flathead. The flathead and all but one big sandbass went back, the rest of them will make a fine Sunday dinner tomorrow after church.

This little guy was odd looking, lots of black on him.

Yep. I been to that one David. Not as good as the old days of my misguided youth, but good for a trip down nostalgic lane. 🤠

I used to eat 'gills and brim like that and got tired if picking through bones. I then learned how to fillet them properly.
We don't like skin or bones in/on our fish. Dipping fresh fillets into the sauce and chowing down without that BS is its own reward.

Cat fishing in the Arkansas river at night is awesome.

Good haul! I'd never fished for bluegill or crappie until I moved three years ago and discovered the lake 10 minutes from my house has a bunch. Fun to catch and some of the best eating fish ever!

Not to sidetrack too much, but whatever became of your Tundra that got stolen? Seems like there was also an ATV or motorcycle involved. Was it ever recovered?

Is that a Peacock Bass Roger ??? Where’d y’all catch those ?
And who’s that ugly old fart fishing with ya ! 😜

in ditches behind a mall in Miami. Old fart is Brian, my offshore fishing buddy.

That was a Toyota T100, one of the nicer ones left in the country. The ATV in the bed was a grizzly 700. Truck was found after several months, but I was out of the country when it was auctioned.
The ATV was offered on a CL type site in Seattle and I received a tip on that, some really great LEO I had some help from closed in on it and *poof* the perp vanished, ....

Hopefully the thief is getting their karma and suffering from a severe case of Sabertooth Crotch Woogets.

Cool. I thought the old guy was RC.

One of SandBillys morning hauls a few weeks ago off Lake LBJ