Gladys and her friend, Sierra, went fishing with me a few days ago. They wanted to keep and eat fish. However, I'm generally not into killing fish. Also, the fish we happened to be catching that day were not even as big as my hand. So, we didn't kill any of them.
If I catch a nice fish, even then, I very rarely will keep it to eat. I enjoy fishing more for the sport and relaxation than the killing.
The other day I was invited to fish with friends who had kept 3 panfish. I was running later than I had planned to and by the time I arrived to fish, they were packing up to leave. They asked me if I wanted to keep the fish. They expected that I would catch a bunch more, since I had planned to fish the evening bite.
I didn't do well in there shallow spot of three feet of water. I moved to a depth of six feet and the fish were biting like crazy! I caught many that I felt were too small to keep, which I put back right away. Then there were some, that after unhooking them I would keep, but they tried so hard to get back in the hole, that I had to let em go.
I had another line, with a different jig, in the hole next to the one I was fishing and occasionally the fish would eat the resting jig! Those fish I kept cause they didn't seem like they would do to well after I got the jig out from deep in their throat.
When the night darkness set in, the gills turned off. Thirty minutes past and I was considering moving to a different spot. I had just charged a glow-in-the-dark jig and wanted to see how it would do. Bamm, a crappie!!! The crappies turned ON! When I ran out of propane, it was time to head home, I kept four crappies, several gills and a few redears.
The fish seem so small when trying to peel their flesh from their rib cage. I did the best I could, thinking the entire time, that these poor fish gave their lives for this meal, and I was going to try not to waste any of them.
I've never been hungry for fish after I have cleaned them. This time was no exception, and these fish looked great, none of them had any black specks or other sort of parasite that I could see.
The boneless fillets when into a milk bath and in the fridge until I was ready to cook them. Then I made a dish of just egg and a dish of crushed Club crackers. The fillets went from the milk, to the egg dish, then were breaded with the crumbs.
I soon realized that I would not have enough cracker crumbs, so I mixed in some Panko.
Frying fish is fairly new to me and I treated it like a delicate procedure. The last time I fried walleye, I had trouble with the breading staying on, but I didn't use any egg. This time was better, though I was still searching for some more improvements.
A favorite site of mine is IceShanty.com , it's full of great info and helpful folk's.
So, I got me some fish frying tips from that website and I now know what improvements to make for the next time I try this.
I wasn't unhappy with the end results. Our family supper was shared with Lloyd and Mom. Lloyd said it was the best fish he had ever eaten-- he liked it better than the walleye!
The kiddies thought it was the best chicken nuggets they had ever had. They seen me clean the fish and swore that they were not going to eat any of it. ;)
For dessert, I made an Apple Crisp.
Apples, butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, and oats; I don't use a recipe on this one.
It's easy to throw together.
The beauty of baking an apple crisp when you fry fish, is the aroma of cinnamon apples will counteract the frying fish. ;)
The apple crisp smelled delightful!
Yuummmmmm!
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