Best Tasting Freshwater Fish

[tomustang]

River Crappie, very tasty

[Goose21]

Crappie, bluegill, walleye, imo are in a league of their own. Cooked a variety of ways but rarely dipped in grease.. I plan on setting lines when the weather finally warms here, and see if I can't whip up a good batch of catfish.

[RyneB]

1-walleye

2-crappie

3-bluegill

4-asian carp

5-northern pike

[Bluebasser86]

Walleye is the only freshwater fish we have close by that I'll eat and only if it goes straight from the lake to the grease. IMO that is the only way to eat fish. My uncle loves to eat drum. They have a really white, firm meat and they eat a lot of craws and clams in our lakes so they may very well be great eating, but I'll never know. 

[Crestliner2008]

I much prefer salt water fish to fresh water. That being said, there isn't a lot of species I haven't eaten at one time or another. The walleye is certainly an excellent eating fish. However, after a couple of meals, you can get tired of the taste. I like crappie and yellow perch too, but not something I could dine on all the time either. Catfish isn't bad, but I'm not partial to many bottom feeders - my own food prejudices! I've also eaten eels, striped bass, LM & SM bass, white perch and bullhead. Never tried a carp or bowfin though!

 

Hands down, the best eating fresh water fish - in my opinion - is the Northern Pike. Once you learn how to properly filet them, you can eat this fish daily, if you had to and still like it. It's a compromise between tasty and bland. I usually dust the filets with various seasonings to change up the pace from time to time. These days though, being retired and not of a notion to kill & keep my catch any longer, I go more for the salt water species offered at my local butcher shop.

[DelfiBoyz_One_and_Only]

Did I mention northern snakehead! You will truely be amazed on how good it really is. No gamey taste what so ever. And easy to fillet it!

Jay-

[bocabasser]

snakehead

[Snakehead Whisperer]

My top 5 would be..

 

1. snakehead

2. walleye

3. rainbow trout

4. crappie

5. smallmouth bass

 

I don't really harvest fish often (other than the first 3,) but I will keep crappie, smb and lmb if they are injured and unlikely to survive.

[Darren.]

Only freshies that I know I've eaten:

 

Crappie - not too shabby

LMB (when I was a kid, never since)

 

To be honest, I'm not a guy who goes out of his way to eat fish. It's rare I dine on seafood, even more so with fresh.

 

CPR all the way for me

[clayton86]

I rarely keep a fish to eat maybe 1 or 2 a year but if its a legal walleye it automatically becomes dinner.

[ww2farmer]

I rarely keep a fish to eat maybe 1 or 2 a year but if its a legal walleye it automatically becomes dinner.

You didn't run out to stand elbow to elbow with guys on the creek banks today for freshly stocked swimming dog turds? LOL.

[Rangerphil]

I have never thought that pike were good to eat! I always thought they were trashy fish!

[Capt.Bob]

1) Jumbo Yellow Perch`

2) Walleye

3) Bluegill scaled with the skin on it

4) Pike

5) Crappie thru the ice

[iabass8]

Walleye

Crappie

Deep fried catfish (i would be stoned by mid western folk for not including this) 

[S Hovanec]

1. Bluegill

2. Walleye (18"-21")

3. Perch

4. Crappie

[RAMBLER]

1. Yellow perch

2. Crappie

3. Bluegill

4. Northern Pike

 

If you are concerned about the travel time from the water to home, take a half gallon plastic juice (or whatever) container, fill it with water, freeze it and put it in a cooler with your fish.  That will last all day long.  A lot better than bags of cubes.

[craww]

Striper by far. LMB are okay once in a blue moon, depending on where they came from. I like to take the skin off and grill it with some orange slices/ fresh parsley. We will get store bought tilapia on occasion, its cheap and mild and pretty good with rice. I dont care for any "fishy" tasting fish.

[DelfiBoyz_One_and_Only]

You will throw away all the other fish once you taste northern snakehead!

Jay

[airborne_angler]

So I tried Walleye at a local restaurant recently. If that's how Walleye tastes...you can have it. ZERO flavor, even after I applied Salt and Lemon.Like I was chewing on air. The breading didn't even have flavor. Not even sure if it was actually Walleye. It was my first time trying it, I'm willing to try it again...just not from that place. $18 for tastless fish...no thanks.

[Capt.Bob]

So I tried Walleye at a local restaurant recently. If that's how Walleye tastes...you can have it. ZERO flavor, even after I applied Salt and Lemon.Like I was chewing on air. The breading didn't even have flavor. Not even sure if it was actually Walleye. It was my first time trying it, I'm willing to try it again...just not from that place. $18 for tastless fish...no thanks.

You can bet if you had Walleye in a restaurant it was farm raised, half cleaned and feed pellet food for fast weight gain. I won't eat any kind of fish in any restaurant, chances are you very likely were feed white fish! I never had a single person tell me they didn't care for my fresh caught and cleaned frozen fish filleted, as a mater of fact I have never had anyone that never had walleye before tell me it anything except it is the best fish they ever had. One other tip to restaurant fish eaters, if it is any color other than snow white, it was never properly cleaned, and I have never seen properly cleaned fish in any restaurant, fish I eat don't have streaks of dark or brown meat in them. If I don't catch it, it aint worth eatin to me.

[SirSnookalot]

In 30 years of the fish business my dad sold thousands of pounds of Canadian Lake Erie walleye commercially caught,  sold tons of Lake Superior white fish too.  People just love those fish, we sold retail and wholesale to restaurants, without a doubt the 2 most popular fish we sold.

If the batter had no taste, I'd put the onus on the restaurant itself, I wouldn't condemn the fish, millions of people can't be wrong or maybe you just didn't care for it.  Worst tasting fish I ever had (I can still taste in from 40 years ago, lol) is Finnan Haddie which is popular in Europe.

[airborne_angler]

I've had a filet o fish from Mickey D's that had more flavor than that Walleye. No doubt in my mind Walleye is likely delicious, I haven't experienced it yet

[SuskyDude]

So I tried Walleye at a local restaurant recently. If that's how Walleye tastes...you can have it. ZERO flavor, even after I applied Salt and Lemon.Like I was chewing on air. The breading didn't even have flavor. Not even sure if it was actually Walleye. It was my first time trying it, I'm willing to try it again...just not from that place. $18 for tastless fish...no thanks.

 

I don't recall where i saw it, but apparently purposely misslabeling fish has become a big thing in the seafood industry. They take a cheap species a fish that looks/eats like an expensive species, and sell it as the expensive species. Very shadey pracitce.

 

Walleye is awesome. That is all.

[Capt.Bob]

I've had a filet o fish from Mickey D's that had more flavor than that Walleye. No doubt in my mind Walleye is likely delicious, I haven't experienced it yet

I believe you, but I will assure you if you stand to eat a fish sandwitch from Mc Donalds and think Walleye is not fantastically better, has never had Walleye. Even farm raised Walleye would more than match that. As for eating fish I didn't catch, it has been years and years since I ever bought fish, in a restaurant or a store, I just couldn't imagine that ever happening. Sea food from a gourmet seafood restaurant once and a while maybe, and would have to believe then it was not what they were advertising most of the time. It is kinda like buying Costa Del Mar sunglasses new for $75.00, you defiantly aint getting what they are telling you you are!!    

[Ratherbfishing]

I have never thought that pike were good to eat! I always thought they were trashy fish!

 

Depending upon how they are cleaned, they are pretty boney but the flesh is really good.  I like as much as walleye- if not more.

 

My favorite fish is probably rainbow trout cooked with butter and lemon juice over a charcoal grill.