Cleaning Crappie

[KILLER]

Does the Crappie taste better if you leave the bones in or out? What do you all think about this

[kunes]

There's an old timer that hangs around the pumps at the marina where I gas up. Once he saw the clamp on lites and white tipped poles in my boat he knew what I had been up to so we talk a bit whenever I go. I agree with his philosophy. "I don't eat no skin and I don't eat no bones so I fillets em".

[Deacon]

Does the Crappie taste better if you leave the bones in or out? What do you all think about this

KILLER,
Here lately I ain't been cleaning many crappie if you know what I mean. You got to catch some to be able to clean them.
If we plan on having young children at the table I usually fillet the fish. It is less worry that way. Other than that I like to cook my crappie on the bone. I make two slices down the side of the fish and when its cooked the sliced area opens up and the meat comes of the bone easier. I might sound strange but I like to crunch on the fried fins and tail.
If we bake the fish I also like to fillet them.

[crappieseeker]

I agree with Deacon on this, if you have children eating, fillet them. Some people say they are a little better left on the bone when cooked, but a little difference in the flavor doesnt outweigh the convenience of popping a nice fillet in your mouth or even fixing a nice fish sandwich with whats left over. It's all an opinion though, and we all have them. Try it both ways a time or two and only then will you decide whats best for you. Good luck and good fishing to you.

[Big Zig]

I have always filleted my panfish, but Deacon's complete fish fry is making my mouth water! I never paid much attention - do crappies have thick scales - like a northern pike for example? If so, then I guess one would need to descale first before pan frying?

[Cuz]

For the 'sweet' flavor of crappie, you scale and fillet LEAVING the skin on. IF, a small one, just cook 'em whole. Heck a little 'bone-pickin' never did hurt. ONE EXCEPTION, with the whole cooked fish, NOT for young'ens. with children, there is peace of mind with the properly filleted fish.
Being a granddad many times over, filleting is the ONLY way to go with young children at the table.
Now, if is only me and my dogs (what, you ain't got dogs??) I cook the smaller fish whole, have a pleasurable meal, and fillet the larger ones for the grandkids.
Hey, y'all they is abitin' under the lites!!
Cuz

[Deacon]

I have always filleted my panfish, but Deacon's complete fish fry is making my mouth water! I never paid much attention - do crappies have thick scales - like a northern pike for example? If so, then I guess one would need to descale first before pan frying?

Big Zig,
I take a spoon from the kitchen, sit under the oak tree and in a matter of minutes can scale a good mess of crappie. Crappie scales are not large at all. At least not on the small ones I have been catching. Yes you do need to take the scales off before pan frying.

[CrappiePappy]

Welcome back Cuz !! Long time no hear. Glad to see you are still out there slaying 'em !! How's the "Crappie hotel" building business ? Good to have you back on board.

I'll have to agree with Cuz ... scaled and fileted with the skin left on WILL give you a "sweeter" tasting piece of fish. I never developed a taste for the "crunchy fried" tails, but I still "gut & cut" some of my fish - for my own personal consumption. I filet the majority of them - but, that's because my family members and friends prefer them that way ... and they're the ones who consume the vast majority of my catches ...LOL!!

Yes, Big Zig ... you'd need to scrape the scales off, before cooking. The best "de-scaling" tool I've ever come across, is a plain old table spoon !!

Dang - now that I've talked about it ... I'm hungry for some fried Crappie. You all will excuse me while I go get the iron skillets ready. I believe fried Crappie, fried green tomatos, mashed potatos, and corn bread are going to be my "blue plate special" for the day .............cp

[Moose1am]

You can take a dremel tool or even a good file and make some notches in the side of the table spoon and come up with a better way to get the scales off.

I have one of those descaler tools in one of my tool boxes but it's been years since I actually used it.

I filet almost 100% of the fish that I catch. I have been know to get a #10 Scalpel out and gently filet a small fish with it. You know it's the kind of knife that the surgeons use. I got mine when I was cutting filter papers for analyzing asbestos samples from 25mm open faced asbestos sampling cassets. If you have a scalple anything can be filets or disected.

Do you remember high school biology class when you had to disect an earthworm, crayfish, baby pig, baby shark or frog? We used those scalples back then too. You can neatly cut right though the back all the way down around the rib bones on even a small crappie and get a neat little filet. But I must admit that it's hard to get the skin off the filet with a scalple. The blade is too short to use my normal method of taking a long filet knife at a 45 deg angle between the filet meat and the skin. A technique that I first learned and mastered on a three week Canadian fishing trip. We caught so many walleyes and pike that I ended up cleaning many fish at the end of each day. A young man that worked for the resort helped me clean the fish the first few days and he was the one that taught me how to take the skin off a filet in just a few seconds. With a sharp filet knife the skin can be peeled off the meat with one continuous slice of the knife along the skin.

One good reason to take the skin off a fish filet is to help remove more of the potential contaminates that are stored in the fish's skin. We humans get rid of contamination like Arsenic by putting it in our finger nails and hair where the body can shed the arsenic. If you take watch CSI you may see an episode where they take samples of hair from a corpse to prove that there was arsenic posioning many years before. They found lead in the bodies of a famous expidition that got lost in the Northern back in the 1800 and they found evidence of lead contamination in the hair samples and in the fingernail materials of the corpses. They have exhumed those bodies twice now for scientific research purposed. They discovered that the acids in the canned food had leached lead out of the can's metal and that lead had entered their bodies and destroyed their brains and nevous system. Something that you DON"T want to happen when out exploring the oceans during the early 1800's. The naval guys went mad. BTW do you know why they came up with the expression "MAD AS A HATTER"? It has to do with arsenic poisoning or mercury posioning. One or the other. Back in the old days they used chemicals such as arsenic or mercury to make hats. The hat makers went mad after they were exposed to too many of the chemicals. That is where the saying came from.

Remember the old saying. "You are want you eat!"

Fish consumption advisories offered by Purdue University for the State of Indiana recommend that you take the skin off the fish before you eat them. Also cut the belli meat off as it stores a lot of the pcbs that are found in the fish in Indiana. Mercury is stored in the nerves and the brain so cut the heads off the fish too LOL It's a good thing that tradition tells us not to eat the spinal cord and bones.

Welcome back Cuz !! Long time no hear. Glad to see you are still out there slaying 'em !! How's the "Crappie hotel" building business ? Good to have you back on board.

I'll have to agree with Cuz ... scaled and fileted with the skin left on WILL give you a "sweeter" tasting piece of fish. I never developed a taste for the "crunchy fried" tails, but I still "gut & cut" some of my fish - for my own personal consumption. I filet the majority of them - but, that's because my family members and friends prefer them that way ... and they're the ones who consume the vast majority of my catches ...LOL!!

Yes, Big Zig ... you'd need to scrape the scales off, before cooking. The best "de-scaling" tool I've ever come across, is a plain old table spoon !!

Dang - now that I've talked about it ... I'm hungry for some fried Crappie. You all will excuse me while I go get the iron skillets ready. I believe fried Crappie, fried green tomatos, mashed potatos, and corn bread are going to be my "blue plate special" for the day .............cp

[Big Zig]

That's it - the boat gets wet tonight! Thanks for the info on a different type of table fair. I have a descaling tool (commercially sold) somewhere in the house. Years ago, my brother (17 years older then myself) taught me how to fillet bluegills we would catch. Being siblings, as time went on we would have competitions to see who could fillet the most off a fish without breaking through to the other side. It was pretty cool, we got to the point that you could see through the skeletal structure of what was left of the fish.

I'm a little rusty from those days, but haven't forgot what a pile of white crappie fillets, some garlic tainted bread crumbs, couple eggs w/milk, and a little hot oil taste like. Com'on 5:00................. :D