Sheepshead get a bad rap

Just my luck… THIS POST JINXED ME
Went out chasin sturgeon today and hooked up with the hardest fighting fish ive ever had, a 27 inch sheepie with a 25 inch girth. I’ll have u know, it will NOT be ingested

Your canned carp is good Mary

Are Rock bass any good to eat?

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Are Rock bass any good to eat?

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I had always thought they were not until last season my buddy fried some up. I thought it was very similar to crappie. The meat is really white. We had it fresh so it stayed firm. Any one else eat ’em?

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My close personal friend Chappy is having a 10 lbs walleye mounted. Our own online taxidermist Jack opened er up the other day and found an 8 inch sheepie in her tummy.

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Didn’t Chappy catch that big fish with a large Bullhead?? That eye must have been either starving or would eat anything.

MM

It does sound like natureboy has done his homework and knows his sheepheads pretty well. Im curious to know about all he does know, im sure theres things about them that he knows that i don’t. Let us know about some of the perticulars on this fish would you?

Sheepy’s:
The hard thump on a tube, the nice fight and best of all the Luganis on the way out of the boat!

It’s amazing how quickly we embrace hearsay! Most of the extreme Islamic terrorists are known to be illiterate and cannot read the Kuran (sp?) for themselves to know the difference between quote and hearsay. Heresay is how these people continue to recruite more rebels.

In our safer little world, today’s topic is Sheepshead, or Freshwater Drum. While it’s a far cry from terrorism, I find it interesting that the root cause for both subjects are derived by the same method……. hearsay.

Four years ago, a member of IDA challenged me to put away the public paradiagm of Sheepies being trash and embrace experience instead. He flat out told me not to take his word for it, but to try it for myself. The sentence that sold me was, “Ever met anyone that refuses to try walleye because they tried salmon once and decided they don’t like fish?” Hmmm…….. food for thought.

Well, being a guy gullable enough to eat a Daddy Long Legs at the age of 5, I thought…… why would this guy make such an argument with a stranger if it would only humiliate me? What would he gain?

So I set out to find me a Sheepy and try it. Amazingly enough, they became much like any other game fish! When you WANTED to catch one, they were hard to find! I did get my opportunity though and saved 2 fish for following this man’s VERY simple recipe.

Not only was I pleasantly surprised, I found myself emabarrassed for ever doubting someone who was honestly arguing for my benefit! I did come forward and post my discovery here on the site and back then, there wasn’t as many of us on board so I took a bit of good natured ribbing and really came to enjoy the humor it brought to the forums!

But…….. this still remains true. I’ll eat sheepies now just like I did then. My family will eat them and not grimmace while doing so. Even my dear old dad broke down and tried some……. and smiled when he said, “Who’d a thunk?”

The only down side I’ve discovered is they really do stink a bit when you clean them. However, what fish doesn’t smell up the house while cleaning or cooking them? Hmmmm……

Not everyone likes pizza. Even coffee, in all it’s world acceptance, is despised by many a pallet. But I’m sure everyone has given each of these items a try at one time or another. Drum are no different.

People who claim they could never eat octopus or squid (mental paradiagm) often enjoy an appatizer of deep fried calamari. Tilapia…… one the “new rages” in aquatic dining, is despised and readily dismissed as a junk fish in it’s native regions. Hmmmm…..

What people tell us carries a lot of weight when it comes to making choices, particularly when it involves a trusted relationship like a parent, family member, or life long chum. But who taught them? Even if their own experience was negative, does it manifest “junk” for the rest of us? We do this with food, religion, politics, vehicles, material goods, etc.,……… Every last one of us.

To be factual, there is plenty of information available to readily support that consuming sheepshead will not alter your efforts toward a healthy life, mentally or physically. Therefore, it does come down to a matter of taste and whether or not we can muster up the courage to break free of a public paradiagm………. and actually try it.

As for Rock Bass, the same holds true but there is more to know: They’re often filled with parasites and not all parasites can be safely consumed. Carefully inspect the fillets to be certain that no harmful parasites are left in them. The black “pepper spots” are parasites commonly found in sunnies, perch, rock bass, and northern pike but are not harmful to humans. Anything else, I simply remove and continue preparing. Rock bass are famous for being “wormy” and “boney”, but the flavor of the meat is very similar to the other panfish species.

Fishing Machine, I’ll have to learn your carp canning process and give that a whurl sometime. If it’s tastier than salmon, maybe I’ll start making “carp loaf” instead!

It is good Kid and its the kind you can sit infront of your t.v. and eat it on crackers.

we really need a vomiting graemlin

Some of you recall this photo from 2004…Mike Little…who likes his sheepie…sushi style!

C’mon Vikefan its not that bad if its fixed right.

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C’mon Vikefan its not that bad if its fixed right.

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I don’t disagree with you–as my memory serves, we would pan-fry a mess of walleye/sauger filets mixed in with sheepshead, with no difference in how they were seasoned and fried. The filets all looked the same on the serving plate, but with the first bite everyone knew whether they had walleye or sheepshead. Not that the sheepshead tasted bad, but it wasn’t as good as the walleye, and everyone could tell what they had when they took a bite. My grandfather, a hard-core meat fisherman, said sheepshead were OK fresh, but were no good once they were frozen. He also said sheepshead were better if you trimmed that fat off around the edges.

It has been quite a few years since I ate sheepshead, and my memory definitely could be playing tricks on me, especially when people call sheepshead trash fish, or assume they taste horrible…even when they have never tried it. However, based on what I think I remember about sheepshead, they compared to small white bass or largemouth, in terms of flavor. Not great, but not inedible, either. (I have not eaten a largemouth in years, but I have kept a few meals of small white bass to eat since I moved down to southern Iowa. I am not proud of that . But, the sad reality is that fishing in the IC area leaves something to be desired when compared to the fishing back home in Minnesota.) I have not kept any sheepshead since I arrived in Iowa, though, so it is possible sheepshead are better than I recall.

Sheephead, the pest when you are walleye fishing comes to mind when most think of them. But lets look at it another way. Even thought the zebra mussels cleaned up the water clarity in pool 4 which helps the fishery, too many of them causes trouble. Sheepheads eat them so when you catch one give it a kiss and put him back. While prefishing a couple years back with Nate on pool 5 for a tournament we got into some huge sheepheads and even though they weren’t walleyes it was a blast. Ten pound sheephead put up quite a fight. And I can remember one evening Nate and I were fishing the Bay City flats on pool 4 and the fishing was very slow. We both looked at each other, shook our heads yes, and started dragging jigs drifting the flats and caught sheephead after sheephead for an hour and half before it slowed down. Even though they are a nuisance, they can be fun too.
Thanks, Bill

Yes, that pic of Mike is a collectors pic in my mind. I never let him forget that one. He and Dave were fishing Lake Tetonka when that happened. Its a pic that will haunt him forever.
Thanks, Bill

A bit off topic, but I am curious. I believe the Mn. State Record Sheepshead is 35 lbs, 4 ozs caught in the 19080’s by the Homer Trestle, just south of Winona.

I have caught hundreds of Sheepshead, most running about
2-8 lbs along with some over 10 lbs, but never approaching the Mn record or even close.

Has anyone out there even caught a sheepshead in the 20 lb. category.