Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: wrongwayric on June 08, 2008, 05:15:09 PM
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Anyone have a good link on tips for cleaning fish and frying them up in the wild? Basically will be crappie, bluegill, bullhead, and maybe some catfish. I kind of know how to do the first 2 but the second 2 not much experience with. May catch an occasional bass but that's a bit iffy.
Will be taking fairly limited supplies so that's a factor. I figure 1/2lb of flour at the most and maybe some oil and seasonings.
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Try my boys over at http://www.texasbestfishing.com
They're experts and should be able to help you if you ask.
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Fillet the panfish (or scale, gut, de-head and fry), bulhead or cats can be filleted or cut into steaks. Cornmeal and/or flour and some cajun seasoning (tony's, zaterans etc.) is usually good (salt to taste). Simple is best, which is what you sound like you are looking for. I like to have fresh onion, lemon, big thick cut fries......
heres a link that will probably be of little help, but what the heck:
http://www.fishingclub.com/Projects/ProjectHome.aspx?id=1454 (http://www.fishingclub.com/Projects/ProjectHome.aspx?id=1454)
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The catfish have to be skinned, the rest you'll be scaling. We generally just lop the heads off and gut them, then scale or skin, and finally fillet. As far as seasoning goes, and rather than flour, I pick up one pack each beer batter mix and Cajun batter mix. Easy to pack, because they're sealed. One or two cans of beer and a bowl is all you need.
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I like the foil packs of cornbread mix, with some salt and black pepper mixed in on site. A bottle of cooking oil and you're set. Whatever breed of fish it is, just fillet them, pour a pack of cornbread mix into a ziplock back, add salt and pepper and fillets, shake and fry.
Cap'n Hilts, why do triple work? If you're gonna fillet them, no need to lop heads, gut, or skin. One slice at a 45 degree angle from rear to front just behind the gill until you hit bone to expose the front of the fillet, then reverse your blade and slice parallel to the backbone all the way to the tail. Stop just before you slice through the skin back there, flop the fillet meat side up skin side down behind the fish, then slice along the top of the skin to remove the fillet from it. Trim rib bones, do the same to the other side, et voila. The entire carcass with guts and all is intact and ready to discard. Flounder is the only real exception, if you want a lesson on them just say so - they are easy too, just a different technique. Well, OK, I do shark different, too, but that's obvious (think pork chops).
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Interesting thing from one of the local fishing shows in the weekend that suprised me. They said don't wash the meat after you've filleted them UNLESS you contaminated it with the guts. They sent three samples of fish of for bacterial testing, one washed and kept on ice, one washed, and one just kept on ice. The one not washed and kept on ice had the least bacterial count of the lot (iirc it was 55 million, 72 million, and 12 million for the unwashed on ice one).
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Inasmuch as I primarily fish freshwater. Rarely fish in the ocean
I have always WANTED to like the taste of freshwater fish.
But no matter what way I've tried it.
No matter what kind of fish it was or how it was cooked.
It all tastes like mud to me.
Even tried rainbow trout in a high end resturant figuring if anyone knew how to cook it so it tasted good. They would.
It still tasted the same.
Guess as much as I love fishing for and catching freshwater fish.
I just dont like eating them
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That sounds like the fish were comming from muddy water then. I've eaten plenty of trout (and eel) from freshwater and it's beautiful. But if the eel comes from muddy waters then yes it tastes foul.
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Good ideas all. :aok I might try the cornbread idea as that sounds fairly simple but i'll take flour along as the ole backup. The way i used to do it was 1 cup of flour, 1 tsp of backing soda (NOT powder), salt/pepper, mix adding a little water till you get a dip, coat the fish and fry in oil. Never tried the cornbread so that will be fun to try.
Will probably do the fillet deal as it's been years since i did the lop off heads, gutting deal. Knowing my luck i'd probably lop off a finger. :lol Someone was telling me that you didn't need to skin the bullhead or catfish but i'd never heard of that before? Anyone ever not skin them and cook em up? I was under the impression the skin was pretty nasty.
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only way I would not skin a cat would be if I was gonna fillet it. but then, the fillet action would remove the skin also. I think I would run away if someone tried to serve me some catfish in the skin ;)
oh, and we do the cornmeal coating dry. dry the fish, roll in dry meal with salt and other seasonings.
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The bacteria should all go bye bye in hot oil so i don't see that being an issue. Still kind of interesting that washing it would attract more were as washing it then on ice would be less. Must be the cold of the ice?
I'm going to get a couple store fillets today and try the cornbread deal here at the house first so i can make sure i know how to do it. Really sounds tasty so hope i don't screw it up for supper.
The last catfish i caught was out of the mississippi river and was 22lbs, no way do i want to skin a monster like that! Heck i get worn out watching the water skiers go by. :lol
There's 4 of us going and we are taking turns cooking/cleaning our catch of the day, everything else will be catch and release. So basically one day i'm fishing supper for the rest of the guys. :aok Hope i catch a log. :rofl
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Catfish?
Use rum to dispatch it. I kid you, not. First time I saw this was on my honeymoon. Worked great on a barracuda. I asked the skipper why they didn't cut the hook. He said the rum was $1 /bottle, but the hook/leader combo was $6.00. :lol
(http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff107/tymekeepyr/Honeymoon/PSVweb10.jpg)
I figured it wouldn't be much different for a catfish, and it wasn't.
Pour the rum, wait til it croaks (not long), gut it, remove head/tail, and fillet as needed. Add more rum, take a swig for yourself, dredge that sucker in some cajun seasoning and blacken it over a fire of choice.
Another choice is to do all the above but leave a layer of skin on one side. (gotta prep for this but will work with most fish) Soak a cedar plank in water for a few hours. Put fish(skin side down) on plank. Put plank over fire of choice (plank must be well soaked) In no time at all, fish will be cooked and will slide right off of skin(which will stick to plank)
Just thought I'd throw that in there.
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I've got cedar shingles I use with salmon on the grill like you mention minus the rum...
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ok first throw the catfish back they make werid sounds and there just nasty lol...but for the crappie and the bluegill ..i always ok so i always watch boxboy28 fillet them its very easy and takes like 2mins a fish..as for cooking them. take a pan and jar of oil with some and a big ziplock back with flour and salt and pepper in it...take an extra bag to shake the mix onto the fillets...drop in the pan and fry it up.... good luck and have fun! :aok
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Thats a really nice cuda. Judgeing by the head its gotta be close to 4' or maybe bigger.
A 4' to 5' cuda is a handful.
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good white wine or olive oil , shrooms (morals, Chantrels, or some cowpatty variety ),Lawry's. cook in foil .
Channel cat smoked :aok
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Catfish are very tasty but i don't eat the big ones. Anything over say 10-12 inches is pretty nasty i agree. I think it's due to all the muck they build up inside when they get that old. Bullheads are basically an offshoot of catfish, usually not that large unless farm raised and fed during the winter. The largest i ever caught was at a farmers pond that he threw waste corn into during the winter. Consistently caught 11 plus inchers out of there all day long! Think the state record is 14 inches so i was pretty greedy fishing all day trying to catch a record holder, but no luck. :cry
Did the cornbread deal last night and was pretty tasty. :aok I might play around with the spices a tad to see what i can come up with. Was thinking maybe a touch of cyanne (sp)? pepper to put a little zip in the taste. ;)
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Catfish are very tasty but i don't eat the big ones. Anything over say 10-12 inches is pretty nasty i agree. I think it's due to all the muck they build up inside when they get that old. Bullheads are basically an offshoot of catfish, usually not that large unless farm raised and fed during the winter. The largest i ever caught was at a farmers pond that he threw waste corn into during the winter. Consistently caught 11 plus inchers out of there all day long! Think the state record is 14 inches so i was pretty greedy fishing all day trying to catch a record holder, but no luck. :cry
Did the cornbread deal last night and was pretty tasty. :aok I might play around with the spices a tad to see what i can come up with. Was thinking maybe a touch of cyanne (sp)? pepper to put a little zip in the taste. ;)
I fish with a guy that resides in Texas for the winter. They catch big catfish in the 20lbs range. What they do is soak the meat in either salt water or milk overnight, then cook it. Also if you like good tasting fish try perch, crappie, pike, or if can catch them walleye. Bass is ok but during the summer months it can be alittle gamey. Take your fillets and soak them overnight in a ziplock bag with some lemon juice, it'll take the gamey taste away. Hope this helps......and good luck fishing...... :D