Sam W

[Don G]

Good to see you out and about. Gerald said that you had been traveling a lot this Fall. Sorry you're not going to make it to the Fall Brawl. We will miss seeing you & JoAnn. Try to make it to the Spring Fling and be sure to bring a coule of "extra" bottles of your Spring Water....LOL...

Blackie & I are headed South to High Rock Lake this am and hope to have a good day.....Will post this evening.

Take care & tell JoAnn hello..

[Sam W.]

Hi, Don - I've been following the exploits of you and Blackie here and through Gerald C. I'm glad you're feeling better now.

I got out to the lake yesterday, a good cloudy day but the fishing was very slow. We caught several crappie including a couple of big ones.

While trolling a deep-diving plug along the edge of the main channel, hoping for a walleye, I hooked a big fish. Whatever it was, I knew it wasn't a bass as it stayed deep and fought strong and slow. It gave me a real fight, and I was expecting my biggest walleye of the year - if I could get it in.

I got it in, and I also got a surprise. It was a 5-lb. flathead catfish (Gerald's favorite species). We iced our fish down and now I've got to clean them. I HATE cleaning catfish - they're just not built right for filleting and they're so hard to skin. But that big guy will make some good catfish nuggets for the deep-fryer. Catfish nuggets and crappie filets, hush puppies, a good raw onion on the side - this is sounding like a pretty good deal.

It's good to hear from you, tell Blackie I said hi.

- Sam

[slab_seeker]

Does it taste good enough to make up for cleaning ti?

[gcromer]

Those cats can sure slim up a boat. I caught a 8 pounder right after I purchased my boat and I was happy to have something in the boat to lower the cost per fish problem I was having.. That cat sure made a mess on that new carpet and I said then that no more cats....

With that said, they sure do make a good stew... red or white.

Hey Sam, It's still not to late to come fishing with me. I could use the help. It sounds like it going to be tough this time. Maybe I can catch some small mouth this year now that you taught me how this past spring.
Gerald

Does it taste good enough to make up for cleaning ti?

[Sam W.]

slab seeker - We had a real good supper last night. I finally got the skin off that flathead. Had to use pliers and a knife and work slow, but it can be done. Then I cut the filets into "nuggets" like you can buy at the store, and my wife breaded and deep-fried those. We had the crappie filets with the same meal, and the crappie are better of course.

I think flathead and channel cats are pretty good eating if the fish aren't too big. Flathead catfish feed a lot on minnows, and maybe they do a little less mud-grubbing than other catfish. If that fish had been much above five pounds, I doubt that it would have been very good to eat.

When I was a kid I once caught a 16 lb. blue catfish out of one of the creeks here. It came out of a small creek, and to get that big, there's no telling how old that fish was. I was proud of it, and my grandma cooked it for me but we couldn't eat it. In fact, we couldn't even stay in the kitchen where it was being cooked, it smelled so bad.

I fish a lot and we eat a lot of fish. I think crappie are the best, followed by walleye and perch (bream). Bass are O.K. if they're not too big, and catfish are the same. White bass are pretty good up to about 12", but bigger than that they get too strong. I enjoy catching big white bass, over 16", because they put up such a fight - but I just throw those back. Crappie are the best of all, though.

[ncnat]

slab seeker - We had a real good supper last night. I finally got the skin off that flathead. Had to use pliers and a knife and work slow, but it can be done. Then I cut the filets into "nuggets" like you can buy at the store, and my wife breaded and deep-fried those. We had the crappie filets with the same meal, and the crappie are better of course.

I think flathead and channel cats are pretty good eating if the fish aren't too big. Flathead catfish feed a lot on minnows, and maybe they do a little less mud-grubbing than other catfish. If that fish had been much above five pounds, I doubt that it would have been very good to eat.

When I was a kid I once caught a 16 lb. blue catfish out of one of the creeks here. It came out of a small creek, and to get that big, there's no telling how old that fish was. I was proud of it, and my grandma cooked it for me but we couldn't eat it. In fact, we couldn't even stay in the kitchen where it was being cooked, it smelled so bad.

I fish a lot and we eat a lot of fish. I think crappie are the best, followed by walleye and perch (bream). Bass are O.K. if they're not too big, and catfish are the same. White bass are pretty good up to about 12", but bigger than that they get too strong. I enjoy catching big white bass, over 16", because they put up such a fight - but I just throw those back. Crappie are the best of all, though.

I prefer bluegills, shellcrackers, crappie, white perch, white bass, and yellow perch in that order. But I'll never turn down any fish other than a carp.

[Sam W.]

Some time when I get a bunch of big white bass, I'm going to try smoking them. (Yeah, I know - it's hard to keep them lit and they go out if it's windy, etc.)

White bass and stripers are salt water species that have adapted to fresh water. They ACT like ocean fish, always moving, boiling on top with the feeding seagulls, going into "feeding frenzies" on schools of minnows. They also taste like ocean fish. They're oily, and the bigger ones have that red meat that tastes very strong and "fishy". That's why I throw the big ones back.

When we lived in CA, I fished in the ocean a lot. Some of those fish like halibut, rock cod, calico bass, and sculpins were very good eating. But some of the others, the fast-moving surface fish that were the most fun to catch - yellowtail tuna, bonito, barracuda, and mackeral, were very strong, oily, and fishy tasting.

There were fish markets near the docks out there that would trade fishermen a smaller weight of smoked fish for their fresh catch of those species. It seems that the strong oily fish are just the ones that taste best when smoked.

So I'm guessing that the big, strong-tasting white bass would make very good smoked fish. If I get to bring a bunch of those home, I'm going to try it.