Does anyone on here eat bluegill or perch while fishing in the summer months? Do they tease anything like trout or bass? How do you prepare them?
yukon_870
Grew up on bluegill from our creek. Cut the head off, gut ‘‘em and scale them. Ma fried them after dusting with some corn meal.
Never reminded me of trout.
I was surprised to see several fast food places selling blue gill near the Grand.
Never reminded me of trout.
I was surprised to see several fast food places selling blue gill near the Grand.
I used to catch several hundred Bluegill per month in the 1970's and not quiet as many in the 1980's and 1990's. I got older and was not able to pull my bass boat out of the garage. My last Bluegill outing was about 10 years ago.
Bluegill are easy to catch with a hook, bobber and worm. I usually fished with ultra-light spinning tackle and plastic curly tail jigs. In the Spring, a fly rod and small poppers is excellent when the Bluegill are nesting. They reproduce so fast that I don't think that you can fish them out. IMO, Bass and Catfish eat way more Bluegill than anglers catch.
The best way to clean Bluegill is to fillet them. No matter how small, a thin, flexible ultra-sharp knife is all you need. Lay the Bluegill on its side, put your hand on its head, and simply fillet the side of the fish off. Start behind the gill and work around the small side fins. Fillet all the way to the tail. Flip the side over and, beginning at the rear, slide the knife between the skin and the meat. Trim off any remaining skin and wash the fillet in clean water.
I put the skinless, boneless fillets immediately into a bowl of ice and water. If a fish dies and the meat is immediately placed into ice water, the inherent "fishy" taste is reduced or eliminated. If the meat is allowed to warm after a fish dies, even if the fish is still intact, the chemical process that causes the fishy taste begins.
I prepared Bluegill fillets different ways. Simply boiling them is salted water for 1-2 minutes and then draining and chilling the fillets produced a Shrimp like meal great with cocktail sauce.
Our daughter liked Bluegill lightly broiled in the oven and then dipped into melted butter. We also softly fried them in melted butter in a no-stick skillet.
Our family used to scale, gut and then bread and fry them with the bones in the fish. I preferred my fish boneless.
Any way you prepare them, Bluegill are IMO better than Trout, Walleye, Catfish and other fresh water fishes.
gea
Bluegill are easy to catch with a hook, bobber and worm. I usually fished with ultra-light spinning tackle and plastic curly tail jigs. In the Spring, a fly rod and small poppers is excellent when the Bluegill are nesting. They reproduce so fast that I don't think that you can fish them out. IMO, Bass and Catfish eat way more Bluegill than anglers catch.
The best way to clean Bluegill is to fillet them. No matter how small, a thin, flexible ultra-sharp knife is all you need. Lay the Bluegill on its side, put your hand on its head, and simply fillet the side of the fish off. Start behind the gill and work around the small side fins. Fillet all the way to the tail. Flip the side over and, beginning at the rear, slide the knife between the skin and the meat. Trim off any remaining skin and wash the fillet in clean water.
I put the skinless, boneless fillets immediately into a bowl of ice and water. If a fish dies and the meat is immediately placed into ice water, the inherent "fishy" taste is reduced or eliminated. If the meat is allowed to warm after a fish dies, even if the fish is still intact, the chemical process that causes the fishy taste begins.
I prepared Bluegill fillets different ways. Simply boiling them is salted water for 1-2 minutes and then draining and chilling the fillets produced a Shrimp like meal great with cocktail sauce.
Our daughter liked Bluegill lightly broiled in the oven and then dipped into melted butter. We also softly fried them in melted butter in a no-stick skillet.
Our family used to scale, gut and then bread and fry them with the bones in the fish. I preferred my fish boneless.
Any way you prepare them, Bluegill are IMO better than Trout, Walleye, Catfish and other fresh water fishes.
gea
Fantastic table fare- the taste is very close between bluegill, crappies, perch, and walleye- all very flaky white meat, different texture with the various sizes between those fish.
I usually fry them after breading with 4C’s Italian breadcrumbs and Shorelunch batter- doesn’t get much better than that, although I am intrigued by the comment above about boiling them in salted water and eating like shrimp cocktail. That will happen at my house in the spring when I have some fresh panfish.
I usually fry them after breading with 4C’s Italian breadcrumbs and Shorelunch batter- doesn’t get much better than that, although I am intrigued by the comment above about boiling them in salted water and eating like shrimp cocktail. That will happen at my house in the spring when I have some fresh panfish.
IMO a good mess of Blue Gill are much more tasty than Bass ! They are one of the best tasting of the Brim family .
My wife and I love to catch and eat Perch. We normally catch a couple hundred a year. Fillet/skin and debone all fillets. We pan fry in popcorn oil and cornmeal, deep fry in batter like halibut, and sometimes boil in sugar water for "poor mans lobster" that when dipped in melted butter is awesome and different. Deep fried in batter is our favorite. We take a dozen nightcrawlers out and quite fishing when they are gone for the day. Usually catch 50 with a dozen worms. That is all I want to fillet at one time any more. I use an electric fillet knife, makes the job easier and faster. There is quite a market for fresh pen raised perch in the Midwest meat markets.
I used to work for an Ohio based bank in the 1990"s that owned several banks in Ohio, Kentucky and other states. Long story short, 8 of us chartered a fishing boat and captain for a day of Ring Perch fishing on Lake Erie. We met the boat at Port Clinton and motored out into Lake Erie for about 30 minutes. The captain used a SONAR fish finder to locate a fishing spot and drop anchor. There was a fair bit of wing and we were in about 2 feet tall waves.
All of the Ohio members had fished for Lake Erie Perch before and used fishing rods with "spreaders" that allowed each line to have two floats, sinkers and hooks. each line also had red beads and chrome spinners. Each line was then baited with a minnow and the fishing depth was about 6 feet. We were in about 30 feet of water. I lived in Louisville, KY and this type of fishing was new to me.
We fished for about an hour and drank a fair amount of beer. Nobody was catching fish but they did not seem to care.
I got rid of all of the red beads, spinners and float and simply tied on a size 4 gold hook and a large split shot sinker. I put on a minnow and dropped the bait to the bottom. As soon as I felt a slight tap or hit on my line, I set the hook. I soon caught a 13" - 14"perch and everybody was impressed. However, they kept on fishing with floats in 6 feet of water with limited success.
I caught Perch after Perch some of which were large and they called them King Perch. My fingers grew sore from removing fish but I kept at it for 2 - 3 hours. The boat captain was impressed. Finally, we ran out of minnows and came to the end of our allowed time. There was a smashed minnow on the deck and one of the other fishermen dared me to catch a perch with it. I put it on the hook and immediately hauled in a large King Perch.
We returned to Port Clinton and the boat captain took us to dinner and took the fish to a cleaning service. While at dinner, he said that we should have stayed out a little longer as the cleaning service said that we had 107 pounds of perch fillets which was the second highest weight of any Port Clinton charter to date.
I let the Ohio fisherman keep my Perch fillets. If they had used my technique and we had more minnows, we could have caught a lot more Perch.
All of the Ohio members had fished for Lake Erie Perch before and used fishing rods with "spreaders" that allowed each line to have two floats, sinkers and hooks. each line also had red beads and chrome spinners. Each line was then baited with a minnow and the fishing depth was about 6 feet. We were in about 30 feet of water. I lived in Louisville, KY and this type of fishing was new to me.
We fished for about an hour and drank a fair amount of beer. Nobody was catching fish but they did not seem to care.
I got rid of all of the red beads, spinners and float and simply tied on a size 4 gold hook and a large split shot sinker. I put on a minnow and dropped the bait to the bottom. As soon as I felt a slight tap or hit on my line, I set the hook. I soon caught a 13" - 14"perch and everybody was impressed. However, they kept on fishing with floats in 6 feet of water with limited success.
I caught Perch after Perch some of which were large and they called them King Perch. My fingers grew sore from removing fish but I kept at it for 2 - 3 hours. The boat captain was impressed. Finally, we ran out of minnows and came to the end of our allowed time. There was a smashed minnow on the deck and one of the other fishermen dared me to catch a perch with it. I put it on the hook and immediately hauled in a large King Perch.
We returned to Port Clinton and the boat captain took us to dinner and took the fish to a cleaning service. While at dinner, he said that we should have stayed out a little longer as the cleaning service said that we had 107 pounds of perch fillets which was the second highest weight of any Port Clinton charter to date.
I let the Ohio fisherman keep my Perch fillets. If they had used my technique and we had more minnows, we could have caught a lot more Perch.
I prepared Bluegill fillets different ways. Simply boiling them is salted water for 1-2 minutes and then draining and chilling the fillets produced a Shrimp like meal great with cocktail sauce.
All of our perch and pan fish like Bluegills, Rock Bass and Crappie were filleted and frozen into 1" cubes. We would take a bag out, toss the block of frozen cubes (out of the bag of course) in the boiling water, and when the water began to boil again, remove them, put on ice and eat like shrimp.
We called it "Poor Man's Shrimp", but we felt very rich while eating them.
All of our perch and pan fish like Bluegills, Rock Bass and Crappie were filleted and frozen into 1" cubes. We would take a bag out, toss the block of frozen cubes (out of the bag of course) in the boiling water, and when the water began to boil again, remove them, put on ice and eat like shrimp.
We called it "Poor Man's Shrimp", but we felt very rich while eating them.
Perch yes as we used to catch lots of 11 to 13 inchers so they were worth cleaning. Bluegills are good eating but can't be bothered fishing for or cleaning anys thing that small. We used to keep Crappie too if they were 8" or better but otherwise they went back. Crappie are one of my favorite to eat but you have to eat them fresh. I found they did not freeze well. Perch to me taste the same as Walleye. The best eating white fleshed freshwater fish imo is Burbot from good clear deep cold waters that contain Lake trout. There is nothing finer! They are all a white flesh fish unlike trout which are usually light pink to deep orange-red depending upon the feed they are consuming. The orange-red fleshed are best imo, they are feeding heavily on bugs and shrimp as opposed to minnows and have a much nicer flavour....these are rainbow trout filets. I usually do them in the smoker and take them to shoots to share with my trap shooting buddies.
First pic is a Burbot...they have many nicknames depending on the region (Ling, Mariah, Eelpout). I caught that one in 90' of water while jigging(pounding bottom) for Lake Trout with a 6" 1.5oz tube jig stirring up sediment. Draws them in every time! 😉
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First pic is a Burbot...they have many nicknames depending on the region (Ling, Mariah, Eelpout). I caught that one in 90' of water while jigging(pounding bottom) for Lake Trout with a 6" 1.5oz tube jig stirring up sediment. Draws them in every time! 😉
Bluegill are delicious! So are perch and walleye. I'll tell ya, a good deep water lingcod off the Washington coast is probably my favorite! Even better than fresh halibut! Lots of tasty options for a good fish fry. I tried the "bluegill" while at the Grand last year, and it was good too. I do believe it was tilapia though....
Crappies caught through the ice are my absolute favorite, but sunfish of all types (there are more than just bluegills, you know) are excellent through the ice also. Both are also good in summer, if as School Teacher says, you keep them alive until filleting, then immediately put the fillets in ice water.
When I was a kid, we had a cabin on a small lake that is right next to Mille Lacs Lake. While Mille Lacs is known for it's walleyes, (and rightly so) it is also Minnesota's best giant perch lake. (though Leech, Winnibigoshish and lake of the Woods have them too-as well as excellent walleyes.) I always liked fishing for perch on Mille Lacs, though if you're catching them and all of a sudden they stop biting, start watching your tip-ups closely, because there's a Northern or Muskie nearby!
Our lake had no walleyes, but tons of crappies, and we knew where they were during any given part of the year. When friends came up, we'd rent a pontoon from the one lodge on the lake, and take them out and limit out in about 2 hours. (Ten people x 45 crappies each is a lot of filleting!) The adults would drink, and I (13 at the time) drove the boat.
Sunfish? The whole lake was full of them, we had great sunnie fishing right off our dock, no need to go out in the boat for them. We had a good largemouth population in the lake, but we rarely ate them; bass in the summer are kind of mushy, and don't taste as good as through the ice. (though it was illegal until recently.)
Sunfish and perch? yes, please!
Canuck- Oh, ya, da eelpout is good eatin, dere, eh? It is a Minnesota law (not really, but it should be) that Minnesotans have to go to the Walker Eelpout Festival at least once in their lives.
When I was a kid, we had a cabin on a small lake that is right next to Mille Lacs Lake. While Mille Lacs is known for it's walleyes, (and rightly so) it is also Minnesota's best giant perch lake. (though Leech, Winnibigoshish and lake of the Woods have them too-as well as excellent walleyes.) I always liked fishing for perch on Mille Lacs, though if you're catching them and all of a sudden they stop biting, start watching your tip-ups closely, because there's a Northern or Muskie nearby!
Our lake had no walleyes, but tons of crappies, and we knew where they were during any given part of the year. When friends came up, we'd rent a pontoon from the one lodge on the lake, and take them out and limit out in about 2 hours. (Ten people x 45 crappies each is a lot of filleting!) The adults would drink, and I (13 at the time) drove the boat.
Sunfish? The whole lake was full of them, we had great sunnie fishing right off our dock, no need to go out in the boat for them. We had a good largemouth population in the lake, but we rarely ate them; bass in the summer are kind of mushy, and don't taste as good as through the ice. (though it was illegal until recently.)
Sunfish and perch? yes, please!
Canuck- Oh, ya, da eelpout is good eatin, dere, eh? It is a Minnesota law (not really, but it should be) that Minnesotans have to go to the Walker Eelpout Festival at least once in their lives.
Not alot of lakes in my area that have Blue Gill but the Yellow Perch is pretty abundant around here and I feel they are one of the Best eating fish out there..........
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