What is it about eating bass that drives people nuts?

See on facebook today a well known fishing host put up a picture of a livewell of small mouth bass saying “friends don’t let friends eat bass”.

I think his overall point was he didn’t want to see the mille lacs bass population go the way of the walleye. But most of the comments were of people outraged at the thought of eating bass and people taking mille lacs bass home to eat.

Aside from all the issues of mille lacs why does bass have such a bad reputation? I would wager that in my life I have eaten almost as much bass as walleye (grandpa lived on a bass lake) and I never thought they were nasty. A few years ago on a camping trip we had fish fry that was 50/50 smallies and walleyes and I could not really tell a difference.

Bass guys are almost as bad as musky guys now when it comes to the snobbery of keeping a legal fish.

I will be honest here as well. I personally think smallmouth taste very good!

I’ve eaten quite a few bass. It’s a social thing why it is not accepted.

Same reason we don’t eat dog or horse or sheephead.

Because we love our beasts of burden. As with many food taboos, there’s no settled explanation for why most Americans are perfectly willing to eat cows, pigs, and chickens but turn their noses up at horse. Horse-eating, or hippophagy, became popular in Europe in the 19th century, when famines caused several governments to license horse butcheries. Today, horse meat is most widely available in France, Belgium, and Sweden, where it outsells mutton and lamb combined. While Americans have occasionally consumed their equine friends during times of scarcity, the practice just didn’t catch on. It may be that so many Americans forged intimate relationships with horses during our founding and expansion that eating the creature seemed morally wrong by the time of the nation’s major food shortages of the 20th century.

I ate horse once by accident. My pulse started racing and my gut was aching so I called my wife then went to the hospital. When she came to visit, she asked the Doctor how I was. He told her I was in “stable” condition.

Was this the Al Linder post? My only comment…. Maybe Al should have spoken up sooner on the topic. Perhaps if there were no walleye netting, there would not be an open season on smallies? Makes no sense to start complaining about it now.

-J.

To piggy back onto FB&RM reply, in the fishing culture most of us have been raised on, Bass and Musky are sport fish and walleye and panfish etc are food fish. Its really as simple as that. I doubt any “walleye guys” bat an eye when they see someone keeping bass.

JD Winston wrote:

I ate horse once by accident. My pulse started racing and my gut was aching so I called my wife then went to the hospital. When she came to visit, she asked the Doctor how I was. He told her I was in “stable” condition.

Good thing no one hollered “Whoa!” when you were swallowing. You might have choked to death.

I kept a few St Louis county Smallmouth years ago. They were so full of worms the fillets almost crawled off the table on their own. Never again.

SR

I’m mostly a bass guy and I’ll be honest. I keep several meals of bass each Season. I normally target to keep them early and late in the season. I also only keep smaller bass ( 12-15″ ) I also try to target lakes that I believe have a over population of small bass. As far as the quality of eating them I’d challenge anyone to tell the difference, if keep early or late season, and if cooked correctly. My Wife and several of my Friends Prefer them over Walleye.

Isn’t a bass just an overgrown bluegill? Just as tasty!

tbro16 wrote:

I also really like smallmouth, and will keep them without second guessing if i cant catch walleye for a meal. But, I will never keep any largemouth bass. I gave them a try when i was younger, and the filet was yellow mush.. really bad. Smallmouth bass on the other hand have nice, thick white filets.

Keep them small and in cold water periods.
Bleed out and put on ice.

I don’t even eat walleyes in the heat of summer.
Cold water fish are much better, though they are all edible.

Carp and bullhead are delicious too, but best in cold water.

One of my favorite books, Cooking Freshwater Fish by Lucia Watson and In-Fisherman mentions largemouth bass as table fare… especially smaller bass 12″ or less and that Doug Stange thinks it tastes much like bluegill. I have not tried it myself.

Bass are fun and easy to catch. They get big if allowed but get fished down easy. That’s why we dont want them kept. It has nothing to do with their quality as tablefare.

Jon Jordan wrote:

Was this the Al Linder post? My only comment…. Maybe Al should have spoken up sooner on the topic. Perhaps if there were no walleye netting, there would not be an open season on smallies? Makes no sense to start complaining about it now.

-J.

Al or Ron don’t remember which. I agree seems a little late in the game to be rousing the troops.

mplspug wrote:

To piggy back onto FB&RM reply, in the fishing culture most of us have been raised on, Bass and Musky are sport fish and walleye and panfish etc are food fish. Its really as simple as that. I doubt any “walleye guys” bat an eye when they see someone keeping bass.

It was certainly “bass guys” that were losing their mind.

Yup on bass guys losing our minds. If it weren’t for the bass guy’s catch and release mentality, the lake might not be the savior some are hoping.
On 3 mile yesterday. Father and three young children to young to hold a pole. Trolling over the top with poles in holders. Fish on dad grabs pole, brings fish close to boat and hands pole to kids. Off come the 12″ smallies and into the live well like fishing panfish. It would have been fairly easy to fill up the live well yesterday. The kids were really excited jumping up and down for joy.
But what a wasted opportunity to teach conservation.
Probably not much of a stretch to think walleye guy bringing his mentality to bass fishing.

fishthumper wrote:

I also only keep smaller bass ( 12-15″ )

When I see this it doesn’t bother me. But when I see people with a stringer of 3/3.5lb+ fish, that makes me cringe.

Huntindave wrote:

Isn’t a bass just an overgrown bluegill? Just as tasty!

They are in the same family, but bass also eat sunfish so they are 2Xs as good! My brother keeps them and mix them in with the pike, crappie and sunfish. The bass taste exactly like sunfish, just bigger fillets. I’d take one over a walleye or crappie.

Jonesy wrote:

It was certainly “bass guys” that were losing their mind.

I think you would get a similar reaction from walleye guys if a Linder, Holst or Klawitter said keep those 28″+ walleye they are the best tasting, way better than “eater” sized fish!

gonefishin wrote:

Yup on bass guys losing our minds. If it weren’t for the bass guy’s catch and release mentality, the lake might not be the savior some are hoping.
On 3 mile yesterday. Father and three young children to young to hold a pole. Trolling over the top with poles in holders. Fish on dad grabs pole, brings fish close to boat and hands pole to kids. Off come the 12″ smallies and into the live well like fishing panfish. It would have been fairly easy to fill up the live well yesterday. The kids were really excited jumping up and down for joy.
But what a wasted opportunity to teach conservation.
Probably not much of a stretch to think walleye guy bringing his mentality to bass fishing.

How dare a young kid catch a fish and eat it too! Absolutely disgusting!

gonefishin wrote:

But what a wasted opportunity to teach conservation.
Probably not much of a stretch to think walleye guy bringing his mentality to bass fishing.

What mentality would that be?

[/quote]
How dare a young kid catch a fish and eat it too! Absolutely disgusting!
[/quote]

X2, what a sad state of affairs

targaman wrote:

How dare a young kid catch a fish and eat it too! Absolutely disgusting!

The sad state of affairs is all the idiots teaching a whole new generation of idiots how to exploit our resources any way they can.

suzuki wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>targaman wrote:</div>

How dare a young kid catch a fish and eat it too! Absolutely disgusting!

The sad state of affairs is all the idiots teaching a whole new generation of idiots how to exploit our resources any way they can.

You’re way over the top on this one. Not worth my time. Have a nice day.

suzuki wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>targaman wrote:</div>

How dare a young kid catch a fish and eat it too! Absolutely disgusting!

The sad state of affairs is all the idiots teaching a whole new generation of idiots how to exploit our resources any way they can.

Having a 3 year old at home my son was only mildy interested in the boat and or fishing. He caught his first fist the other day and we brought it home and ate it. Now he is wildly excited about the boat and fishing. Just took bringing home that first fish to show mom to get him there. I get dust in my eyes when I think of the pride he had walking in the door with the fish.

I grew up the same way. My Dad would fill the livewell with bass and panfish. We would bring em home and show my mom. Sometimes my dad, unbeknownst to me at the time, would go back to the lake and release the fish.

I have pretty much gone walleye fishing at least once a week since april. I have killed somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 eyes and 6 of them came on 1 trip where I took a limit which I almost never do (usually out of being inept).

I guess my point in my ramblings is that conservation IMO is a lesson more easily taught at a somewhat older age. With a 3 year old I’m just looking for a fishing buddy.

I hope nobody gets me wrong I’m not advocating killing bass or keeping them just to do so. I didn’t even want this conversation geared towards Mille Lacs. I just grew up eating bass. Even largemouth. I’m just surpised or annoyed at the backlash and guilt I’m supposed to feel if I eat a couple smallies while camping this week.

I don’t see keeping 5 12″ bass as exploitation or not being conservation minded? We should remember what the term resources means. Now if the guy was letting the 12″ go and keeping 20″, that’s where I would have a problem. I am guessing that out of 5 12″ bass, 2 or 3 of them are going to not see 16″+. That’s a guess. I’d be interested in seeing what the survival rate of a bass, or any large gamefish, at 12″ is.

I have grown up fishing farm ponds and we keep a lot of 10″-13″ bass. And the more we keep the better the big bass fishing gets. Bass are one of my favorite targets threw the ice. Fun fight and out of that cold water they taste delicious. Like said above. I will keep all the 10-13 inchers I want but will never keep anything over 2 pounds. Those are always released. No reason to keep a fish of that size when the smaller fish are much more abundant. Now when it comes to public waters I won’t keep any bass unless we are doing a shore lunch or something similar and panfish or walleyes aren’t cooperating that day. And even with that we are still only keeping the small fish.

Something People have to keep in mind is that sometimes keeping and removing some over population of smaller fish is the Best thing fisherpersons can do for a lake. I think it funny that’s its always a BASS guy or a Walleye guy. I mostly fish for bass but like to think of myself as a FISH guy. I think those that fish for walleyes would get upset as well if they hear someone says we should Kill every walleye we catch regardless of the size. They are bad for the lake. Then again I’ve never seen this statement. But I have seen the same statement more than once about bass.

Went to a deep, clear Canadian lake for years…many smallmouth and lake trout but no walleye. So for shore lunch the guides would prepare smallmouth. At 12-13 inches they were “fine.” A few got in there larger than that and let’s say well – you could really taste the difference…even in those clean waters.

Takes 15 years for a smallmouth to reach trophy size on Mille Lacs. I say let ’em grow …

Jeff Schomaker wrote:

…smaller fish are much more abundant.

And less likely to have accumulated pollutants.

fishthumper wrote:

Something People have to keep in mind is that sometimes keeping and removing some over population of smaller fish is the Best thing fisherpersons can do for a lake.

Yup…

gonefishin wrote:

Off come the 12″ smallies and into the live well like fishing panfish. It would have been fairly easy to fill up the live well yesterday. The kids were really excited jumping up and down for joy.
But what a wasted opportunity to teach conservation.

Having trouble following your commentary here.

Why was it a wasted opportunity to teach conservation? Why would it have been any different to keep another species like panfish vs keeping smallmouth?

The simple answer to the OP’s question about bass is that we don’t eat them because we don’t eat them. It’s about us, not the bass.

I have spoke to some bowfishing guys on one of the ramps one time and asked them what they did with all the fish as I’d expected that getting rid of a barrel full of carp would be quite challenging.

As it turned out, getting rid of the fish was no problem. The problem was keeping order amongst the member of certain communities who REALLY liked and valued the opportunity get some excellent and very tasty carp.

These folks had learned to watch for the bowfishing guys, which basically look like a floating Yankee stadium on the water and lit up for a night game, and then would camp out at the landing awaiting their return. The problem was that things got a little competitive and local law enforcement got called to restore order, after which they told the bow fishermen they had to nix the impromptu fish-away because crowd control was causing too many hassles.

Bottom line is that what we eat is driven by what we think we should eat.

Grouse

to the almighty BASS guys…. see your beloved bronzies netted by the millions every spring and then you can cry to my dumbass walleye mentality.

Canoe campers like myself will tell you that smallmouth taste good. I keep and eat all kinds of fish quite often, and I do not feel guilty about it. I don’t care what you do as long as it’s legal.
I let the morality police take care of that.

big_g wrote:

to the almighty BASS guys…. see your beloved bronzies netted by the millions every spring and then you can cry to my dumbass walleye mentality.

If your beloved walleye’s are being netted by the millions your fight should not be against the bass or the bass fisherman. Neither of those are netting the walleye. If you read most of the BASS fisherman responses to the Mille Lacs issue you will find most are on your side of the fight. Just not sure how destroying another great fishery on Mille Lacs is the solution to the walleye problem.