Thread: Question: Where do all those fish end up when numbers are caught?

Think I'll stick to a few drops from a fresh lemon...

Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

That's one I've never heard of and doubt they sell it locally.

With Amazon and Walmart everything's Local.

Originally Posted by Happyfisherman

Corn meal, corn flour, all purpose flour all work. You can add salt, pepper and garlic powder or whatever. Those Ketchn sliders look like something you'd buy in a restaraunt. I like potato salad as a side

50 / 50 , corn meal and panko on them , we mix our own breading

Originally Posted by keeferfish

Pretty sure the reason is they cook faster. My large fish I will actually cut the filets into 2 pieces so I get 4 pieces of cooked fish.

and when you get 4 pcs. per side , that defines "large" in the world of crappie , and every once in a good while I ketch an 8 pc ....just saying
but on the serious er side , keeping the sizes of fish to be fried/baked uniform , makes for a way better finish at the table

Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against keeping fish. But when a see a table full of panfish - especially nice crappie, I wonder what happens next:
cleaned & filleted?
some eaten / some frozen?
some given away?
some or all dumped?

My club recently had a panfish tournament and most of the fish were dumped. One angler won with 24 lbs. and would have kept them alive for release after the weigh-in but his aerator didn't work. I doubt the majority of dead or dying fish were kept to eat?

My opinion about weighing fish in a competition is that unless anglers plan on keeping fish, fish should be released alive as much as possible and the only way to do that is with reduced creels and good aeration. Granted, most lakes have fish populations not dented by the bucket brigade, but the smaller the water, the more impact tournaments have due to delayed mortality and the reduction of quality fish.

Your thoughts.

Off topic:
Is there enough meat on a 9" crappie or 5" sunfish to go to the trouble of filleting? What about all those bones? Is the skin removed or the fish scaled?
The reason I prefer catfish 1 lb or heavier is not having to worry about either.

One thing the winner should have made sure his aerator worked before fishing or if he knew it didn't he shouldn't have fished a tournament. He also should have kept the fish or gave them to somebody that would have ate them instead of being a pathetic individual & throwing them away. Very unsportsman like conduct if you ask me.

I found out from someone who was at the weigh-in that he did clean many of them later but threw out the small ones not worth cleaning. There should be a dead fish penalty percentage-wise. Maybe I'll suggest it the next club meeting if I go which I rarely do.

9” thick blacks have plenty meat. The rules on my boat are simple. Dont keep it if you are not going to consume it.
We like the gentlemen stated in a previous post usually filet the 10” slabs and scale the 9” ones to fry or bake whole.
we save the heads and back bones for our crab nets this time of year so we are far from wasting any of our fish.

BON TEMPS!!

What water system are you catching your fish in? If it’s good clean water you should cook some crappie; they are light, flaky and very clean tasting. If fileting they should have no bones and we don’t care about the time it takes that’s part of the whole experience of catching and eating your own food.