Fish are smart? Or just not there?

[Ben Miller]

6 minutes ago, FishDewd said:

Fried bass huh? Well, I haven't tried that. I've had them baked and broiled and they weren't very good... then again, I also didn't cook it myself either. I actually have a background as a cook. What size is good for eating? Could make a difference.

 

As far as carp, I should've specified more. I've only ever eaten silver carp, which I don't think are actually true carp at all. I've caught grass and other carp, but meh, I wouldn't eat those, although they are fun to catch. Not sure about frying, but they accept flavor very well and lack a fishy taste. I've had them baked like a flounder and it was pretty good, but never actually cooked one myself. Also heard of people grilling them too. If I ever catch any of the ones in my pond I will experiment and let you know. I know for sure that they don't bite traditional carp bait. I've tried dozens of formulas and have never hooked one. I have heard of angler success with spoons, so when the season comes I will try that and see if it works, despite never having caught any fish on a spoon before. 

Yes, Bass fileted and fried are delicious!  I'm with you FishDewd on the baked and broiled though.  2 1/2 lbers to 1lbers are the best to eat in my opinion.  I always throw anything bigger back, but rarely keep any.

 

  LOL!!!!!  Yeah, so I was thinking the grass carp and haven't ever heard of a silver carp.  Pretty much, I don't eat much fish, but I do like to and when I do, if it's fresh water it's fried.  Saltwater fish are either baked, grilled, pan seared, and rarely fried.  

 

I've only snagged carp on lures "by accident" and only caught them on oatmeal balls.

[FishDewd]

1 hour ago, Ben Miller said:

Yes, Bass fileted and fried are delicious!  I'm with you FishDewd on the baked and broiled though.  2 1/2 lbers to 1lbers are the best to eat in my opinion.  I always throw anything bigger back, but rarely keep any.

 

  LOL!!!!!  Yeah, so I was thinking the grass carp and haven't ever heard of a silver carp.  Pretty much, I don't eat much fish, but I do like to and when I do, if it's fresh water it's fried.  Saltwater fish are either baked, grilled, pan seared, and rarely fried.  

 

I've only snagged carp on lures "by accident" and only caught them on oatmeal balls.

Lol, yeah, the silvers are the ones that jump out of the water and smack you right in the face while you're just trying to ride your jet-ski down the canal and have a good time... personal experience with that! They're big, they're heavy, they're prevalent, and they're delicious!

[Paul Roberts]

11 hours ago, kiteman said:

Great hookset, it was on a crank so not too much work. It was out of water less than a minute for a couple of pictures. I did not put it on the ground and I only touched it outside of its lip when I set it in the water and held it underwater by the belly to hold it upright while it caught its breath and swam away. 

 

Kudos to you for taking care of those fish. That said, bass aren't the most fragile of fish. If healthy, they can stand being out of the water for a bit. I've never ascribed to the idea that fish shouldn't be touched -especially course scaled fish like bass. If a fish was really stressed -sick, too high temperatures, or some individuals post-spawn- then interrupting the slime layer might be of some concern. 

 

One of my pet peeves -maybe my biggest (besides wimpy fishing rods)- is catching bass with sores, bruises and chunks of their face missing. I'm planning a video on handling and, especially, unhooking bass. There are definitely some people out there -at least in my waters- who could seriously use that info.

 

I do love those fish.

[toni63]

On 1/23/2018 at 3:52 PM, Paul Roberts said:

Almost assuredly, all the bass -even larger ones- weren't entirely caught out. There's plenty of good research showing that some bass in a population are more difficult to catch than others; Some have even been labeled "immune to angling". So, you likely have fewer fish and of those, the population is likely skewed towards more difficult to catch fish. One scary thing is, these "personality" traits have been found to be heritable. Difficult to catch bass are now known to produce difficult to catch offspring. 

 

There's also plenty of research showing that differential individual personality is not the only thing at work. Nearly all bass tend to become more difficult to catch after they've been exposed to angling.

 

 

Yikes! So I read this and what I take away from it is that 1-Bass that are immune to angling survive and reproduce more bass that are immune to angling, thus increasing the population of angler proof bass that can't be caught, ever and 2-bass that have been exposed to angling learn angling and tend to be harder to catch after they are exposed to angling.

 

So logically taking that to its conclusion, eventually the waters will be filled with bass that can't be caught, or are rarely caught, if ever, with hundreds of boats and anglers spending millions of dollars to not catch fish.

 

Sounds like there's not going to be much difference than the way things are now..... lol

 

And the only thing we can, as anglers, do to prevent "fishing proof" bass for the future generations of non-fish catching anglers is to stop fishing now so the fishable bass populations expand and we don't teach the new bass to fear us.

[RPreeb]

On 1/30/2018 at 10:03 PM, FishDewd said:

Fried bass huh? Well, I haven't tried that. I've had them baked and broiled and they weren't very good... then again, I also didn't cook it myself either. I actually have a background as a cook. What size is good for eating? Could make a difference.

 

As far as carp, I should've specified more. I've only ever eaten silver carp, which I don't think are actually true carp at all. I've caught grass and other carp, but meh, I wouldn't eat those, although they are fun to catch. Not sure about frying, but they accept flavor very well and lack a fishy taste. I've had them baked like a flounder and it was pretty good, but never actually cooked one myself. Also heard of people grilling them too. If I ever catch any of the ones in my pond I will experiment and let you know. I know for sure that they don't bite traditional carp bait. I've tried dozens of formulas and have never hooked one. I have heard of angler success with spoons, so when the season comes I will try that and see if it works, despite never having caught any fish on a spoon before. 

I don't have any recent experience, but back in the early 60's our goal was to catch "keeper" bass, i.e. anything that was big enough to be worth filleting.  We were self policed, and I think we had a good handle on sustainability without any actual size limit regulations. 

 

Panfish like sunfish, crappie, bluegills were fried on the bone, just heads cut off, scaled and gutted, but bass and walleye had to be big enough to be worth filleting to be keepers.  The only way my mom ever cooked them was to fry them, and once breaded and fried, they are all fairly similar, and I thought they were quite tasty.  

 

I never ate carp, never caught one myself.  I don't think that there were any in the Wisconsin lake where we spent our summers when I was young.  I did have a friend after we moved to Montana who said that they ate carp often when he was a kid.  As long as the dark strip was cut away from the fillet on both sides, he said that they were good.