Chain Pickerel Taking Over?

[thegundog]

My boys fish the pond everyday, I asked them to start bringing in the pickerel and tonight they brought in a 9"-10" chain.

I've read they are very boney fish, but I fileted the fish across the top of the backbone and did not find them to be overly boney. We got a couple small but decent sized filets, a few of these and maybe you have a meal?

Anyone have any tips on prep and recipes for chains?

As crestliner suggests I may go out, fish the deeper areas and see what happens.

In addition to the chain mentioned above, one of my sons also caught and released this guy tonight.

[skiptomylu]

I don't know how close the Chain's are to an Alligator Gar, but I would suspect maybe close? I have no idea, but do know lots eat Gar Balls and I never have made any myself, but always here how good they are. I have had some to eat many years ago and was good to me! Being from SE Texas I have heard about Gar Balls most of my life!

Here are a couple links if interested.

How to Prepare Alligator Gar: Fried Alligator Gar Balls - The Home Guru

One more note I have not even watched this video yet!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w09i0h0gMfM

Skip

[wicklundrh]

They more closely resemble a northern pike. There are several ways to prepare them and all of them are good in their own right.

My grandmother learned this from an indian many years ago.
Scale the fish then fillet it off the bone.

Turn your slab meat side up (skin side down) and start at the tail section. Make incisions all the way through the meat to the skin every 1/8 in all the way across the entire fillet. It is called "Scoring". Prepare fish as you would like and the bones will fry right out.

She was an excellant pike fisherman and we spent many summers living in Canada in the mid to late 80's.

Some great recipes with pike or Chain's:
Crush Cheetohs in plastic bag with rolling pin, dip fillets in egg then in cheetohs and fry
Poor man's lobster: boil pike in water
Pickled pike (one of my favorites)

[Ketchn]

They do have some "extra" bones going on and I have been told what was already posted about scoring the fillets . Being in the same family as walleye I am pretty sure they are tasty ....I used to ketch large chains back in the day up in Pennsylvania on big live shiners very early in the morning free swimming them on top ....sure was fun to watch the water blow up when they took them , never ate them myself though, we let them swim on .

[wicklundrh]

Have to be careful with the word "pickerel" in the north country. Many people in Canada refer to the walleye as a "pickerel".