My grandma loved bullheads. Suckers pickled or smoked for me. Just wish I had access to getting them.
My Grandma also loved bullheads and I dont think they are bad at all.
I will keep some smaller LMB’s in the winter. Soak them in Franks Red Hot and they are pretty damn good.
@joescegura – tell me again about Rock Bass. I think you had a client get you to try some a few years ago. Any more experience and are they still good? We seem to run into a lot of them up at “Sally” Warfield’s cabin. I’m having a hard time talking him into trying some ~
Frydog, I know a guide on Cass that if the walleye or perch bite is tough and he has a client that wants to bring home a good size meal home, he puts them on rock bass and says there great table fare. Remember though Cass is spring fed and cold all the time, so that makes a difference. I have kept them before and when cleaned they were to dark for me to go for.
Small large mouth are ok, and the smallies we caught in Canada tasted a lot like walleye.
Rock Bass are seldom caught in most waters so I assume they are not in great numbers like other common fish. For that reason alone I don’t keep them. Otherwise I would have sampled one this winter since I caught a handful.
Also carries over from my childhood. My Dad would not let us keep RB or Crappies. We called them specs back then and there were forbidden in our house. Weird huh?
I don’t eat a lot of fish anymore, but I have tried some species other than the common ones for the table.
SMB from Canadian shield lakes taste similar to walleye. We’ve eaten some in Ontario when wind was a monster and didn’t want to venture far from the bay we were in. A 12″ smallie from ice cold water would be impossible to distinguish from walleye when cooked correctly.
I’ve eaten smaller LMB caught on tipups through the ice. They tasted like panfish from around the area. I’d never eat them from warm water, but through the ice I couldn’t tell a difference between most other fish.
I’ve tried rock bass as some have mentioned. We kept a few from a lake in Villas County in Northern WI. The water is cool and crystal clear. To me, they tasted identical to bluegills. Rumor has it they are wormy in areas with warm water?
Small channel cats are commonly kept on the river around here. I don’t keep them, but there are guys who rave about catching them on wing dams and loving the texture of the meat.
Never mind lol.
I’m not sure what people consider “Wormy” – If it’s the black dots (Neascus) than yes, rock bass tend to accumulate those more than most species – which are tiny larval cysts of a parasite that are 100% safe for human consumption, have zero affect on taste or texture and they disappear when cooked. Yeah, it looks a little gross, but plenty of bluegills, perch and pike get it too.
I’ve found actual worms while cleaning a few fish but none ever in a rock bass or ever in any panfish that I can remember. Maybe others have.
Eating preferences are regional and in many areas they also vary a lot by ethnicity. In a lot of cases, it’s just a matter of knowing how to clean the fish and then prepare them.
Carp are probably one of the least appreciated fish for eating for most in this area. A friend in Illinois said if bowfishing down there you will often have a line of people waiting for you to come in to taek advangate of the barrels full of carp which most guys give away. The local Asian population makes a spicy fish cake out of them that he says is excellent, very close to crab cakes. Others use a fillet technique that I don’t get, but the result is there is one row of big bones left down the side which are easily left in once piece when the fillet is fried and some guys said that after frying they are easily plucked out 2-3 at a time to produce a “boneless” fillet.
My grandparents lived out in NE SD and they would NOT throw back a bullhead of any size. Their neighbor knew how to clean them so all the bullheads went over there and for a half-the-catch fee, he would clean everything. It was funny because he was secretive as hell about it, no matter how hot the day, he would lock himself in his garage and he would not show anyone else how he cleaned them because that would jeopardize his free fish supply.
My other grandma never met a northern she didn’t like. To eat that is. Pickled, fried, baked, poached, she had a technique for every size of them. We took her to Canada a couple of times and it damn near killed her to throw back northern. We kept her limit, the average was generally about a 28 and a happier grandma I have never seen, Helen heading back to the states with a limit of big walleye and the biggest limit of northern she’d ever laid eyes on.
All fish taste good if they are made right. I have not personally perfect cooking all the less common species. But I have had some fantastic Rock Bass, bullhead, suckers, eel pout, large mouth bass, small mouth bass, cat fish, white bass, carp, etc.. I will try almost anything at least once. I tend to stick to the more common species. I had a guy that I worked with that brought me some of the best catfish I have ever had. He would catch some and put them into his bathtub. He would change out the water 4 to 6 times a day with fresh cold water for a week than clean them and do something. I could never get him to tell what he did. He said the most important thing was the freshwater bath. That is all he would tell me.
With some of the memes I see from the younger generations I’m glad this topic is about food. 
With some of the memes I see from the younger generations I’m glad this topic is about food.
No lie, that headless meat was twitching like we just got it off the hook and finally it gave one last ghostly kick and rolled itself over in the pan.
When we were kids we left some bullheads in a paper grocery bag overnight in the garage to clean the next day. They were still alive and mouth breathing the next day.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
