Cooking crappie with the skin

[crappiejim]

There is no comparison to filets of crappie vs "crappie on the half shell" (skin on). Fried 4 pieces of the 2lb fish I caught at eagle a couple of weeks ago. In-cred-I-ble!!! Crispy salty skin and tails along with sweet white meat. It just don't get no better

[Eagle 1]

BEEN DOING IT FOR YEARS . RED EAR EVEN BETTER !These are black crappie .

[GWDawg1]

Are you scaling, then flileting? I want to try this.

[crappiejim]

Yeah. I scale them like I would if I were just going to gut and cut heads off then filet.

[tigerinfielder3]

then fry them with skin and all?

[DonDon]

I have a client of mine that wants 8 fish over 2 pounds, scaled and gutted, head on. He slices them a few times in a cross hatch pattern, then puts thinly sliced garlic in the slots and puts lemon on top and inside the cavity. Says he grills them. I've gotten 6 so far that were 2 or better but haven't got the 8 yet that he wants lol

[SlabLapper4sure]

The skin on is awesome and so are the tater chips!

[Eagle 1]

Yeah. I scale them like I would if I were just going to gut and cut heads off then filet.

+1!

[Swampseed]

Been wanting to try them that way. Had never heard of skin on and frying tails until last year.

[crappiejim]

I guess I should clarify that My favorites are the smaller ones. I like to just gut and cut the heads off and gut and fry or bake whole. This way I can enjoy the big ones like the small ones