I've got a buddy that makes what he calls "grennel balls" and they're awesome!! Don't knock it till you've tried it (but I usually throw 'em back also!! rotfl)
Printable View
I've got a buddy that makes what he calls "grennel balls" and they're awesome!! Don't knock it till you've tried it (but I usually throw 'em back also!! rotfl)
I have tried them and they are ok, but I will take my sac au lait, bream and bass over them any day! It is the only seafood that I have found that I am allergic to. For some reason I get little red bumps that break out under my eyes, happened both times that I tried them. I usually cut their stomach and throw them back, don't want them eating all of the "good" fish out there. But that is a nice one for sure Bruce! I bet that was a heck of a fight on a jig pole.
I either shoot them in the head and throw them back or take a boat paddle to them. I had one steal a squirrel I dropped from a tree. He hit the water three feet off the bank of a small bayou in my backyard. I saw the wake go towards the squirrel. Before I could drag it in with a limb, I saw the grennel nose up to it, grab it, and took off like a flash. Craziest thing I'd seen squirrel hunting. Watched one shred a hole in my neighbor's bream basket he had hanging off his pier. It was grabbing it and shaking the snot out of it. Once it tore a hole, in went the head and out it came with a bream. Those things are eating machines. Fun to catch on a pole, but I won't let one go back in the water alive.
Some people around here eat them..when I was a kid my Dad brought one home to try.He filled the bathtub and let it swim around in there all night and cleaned it the next day.I remember seeing it in the bathtub but don't remember how it tasted...but Dad said it was good and he was a picky fish eater, but he did say something about the perparation but I don't remember. He's gone now or would ask him. The swamps around here are loaded with them. They are one of the hardest fighting fish that swim. Gar,Paddlefish,Grinnel or bowfin,which ever name....haven't changed in a million years or so. I guess it was a design God figured didn't need much improvement.
As we know, in MS/LA they are called so many different things grinnel, bowfin, choupique, etc... They are good table fare if you keep them alive until time to cook and know how to prepare them. My grandmother back in the late 70s would go fishing in MS and bring back a few during the early spring.
A lot of the older gentlemen that I talk to when fishing under I-55 or I-10 have been targeting them the last few weeks and doing pretty good. One guy had 3 in a cooler of water. That one is nice but I couldn't do anything with it but break the 8ft B&M jigging pole I like to use.
Ran across an interesting item today. Read in the new Outdoor Life that South Carolina holds the record for the Grinnel 21 Lbs, 8 oz. That would bend your pole.