Eating bass

[billmac]

Do you guys ever eat the bass you catch?  For all that I've been obsessed with fishing for most of my life, I'm not a huge fan of eating fish in general, and bass are pretty low on the list of fish I do eat.  Most of my experience is with smallmouth and by the time they are legal here in NY, they are wormy.  Panfish, pike, and walleye are more appealing to me as food.  I would only keep a bass if I didn't think it would survive being released, and even then I would have to cut the parasites out.

[Catt]

I'm a Cajun so yes I do!  ?

[MN Fisher]

Even us northerners eat Bass. I catch a 2#-3# LMB and half the time it goes home with me so I can fillet it and broil it up.

[The Short Fisherman]

If I'm fishing in clean water, then yes. I never eat fish out of polluted waters  though just in case they carry something nasty

[N Florida Mike]

If I was a condemned man, fried fish would be on my last meal. Ive eaten all kinds of fish, including many a bass. That being said, I mainly keep them now for friends that dont get fish much, or if we are having a family fish fry and other kinds arent quickly available , or if I gut hook one. We get a lot of saltwater fish, and I would rather eat them than bass. And Id rather eat bream and catfish than bass.

If I do eat bass, I eat filets mostly. Something in the skin of a bass makes them have a muddy taste, for lack of a better description. 

It doesnt bother me at all if people eat bass, as long as their catch is legal.

 

[ratherbfishin1]

I personally don’t see a point, there are so many other fish that taste way better (or so I’ve heard, I’m not a fan of fish at all) that I really don’t see the point. If I were fishing to keep them I would probably begin crappie and trout fishing. But if other people want to eat their catch then it doesn’t really bother me unless it is a monster bass. 

[billmac]

Interesting.  Why would someone eating a big bass bother you?

[FCPhil]

Nope, always catch and release to catch them again, especially if they are big. 

[Hawkeye21]

I had bass before and it was very good.  I myself never keep bass but I also don't keep any fish to cook unless on a fishing trip where we fry them up for dinner.  The only fish we keep for eating are bluegills, crappie, walleye, perch and pike.  I don't like seeing anyone keep bass over 18 inches because I like to see those bass go back and reproduce.  As long as it's withing state regulations then there really is nothing wrong with it.

[ratherbfishin1]

23 minutes ago, billmac said:

Interesting.  Why would someone eating a big bass bother you?

Small bass aren’t always younger than the big bass. A big bass has a higher potential of having big offspring. This means if enough people kept the big fish then the average size of fish in a body of water will go down. 

[rod snapper]

My buddy and i were fishing his farm pond at night, and we gut hooked a 16 incher (didn't weigh it) but it was doomed, so we filleted it, and for lack of knowledge on how to cook it, we threw it in a frying pan with butter, salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and i'll tell you, i thought it would taste like dirt, cause everyone i know said it would, but it tasted amazing! now whenever we fish his pond, well keep one just because its fun, and tasty. i recommend keeping one now and again.

[HeyCoach]

I’m not going to eat a bass.

 

For a short time I lived in a poor area of Alabama (black belt) that was a big producer of farm raised catfish.

 

All of the town events had tables set up frying or grilling catfish filets. The two restaurants in town featured catfish. 

 

I’ve not eaten fish in a while. 

[scaleface]

I eat bass , especially in the slot limit lakes . Those slots dont work to grow bigger bass if  the anglers dont do their part .

[Glaucus]

Never. You have dogs, cats, and horses, and then you have pigs, cows, and chickens; I place bass in the dogs, cats, and horses category: they're friends, not food. 

 

If I was a starving man, however..... 

[humbleangler]

I have eaten bass, but only on a couple occasions...I thought it was good...not as good as bluegill, crappie, trout, or walleye, but still very tasty. I rarely keep and clean my catch, and when I do, it's usually planned so I'm going for panfish or cats all day, not bass. If I happen to gut hook a largemouth in the slot on one of those days, it comes home with me. I think a lot of the negative reviews of taste are exaggerated and meant to discourage people from taking, but slots and limits are there for a reason, and relative to other fish, bass populations are not exactly struggling. I almost prefer seeing a guy take a couple 14-16 in. bass vs. an overflowing bucket of crappie or cats...The crappie population around me is WAY down from overfishing...wish they'd lower the limits on a lot of lakes if they have them at all. 

[scaleface]

6 minutes ago, Glaucus said:

Never. You have dogs, cats, and horses, and then you have pigs, cows, and chickens; I place bass in the dogs, cats, and horses category: they're friends, not food. 

 

If I was a starving man, however..... 

You stick dogs , cats , and horses in the mouths with hooks ?

[CrankFate]

I have never eaten, kept or killed a LMB or SMB.

[Glaucus]

3 minutes ago, scaleface said:

You stick dogs , cats , and horses in the mouths with hooks ?

I put what is essentially a rope around a dogs neck, I use a spray bottle on a misbehaving cat knowing they hate it, and I nail metal to the feet of horses. 

 

Can we stop with this now?

 

My point was clearly that I personally don't see bass as food. I literally follow the stories of pet bass on YouTube. I'm not some kind of extremist who hates people that eat them though. I really don't care what other people do. I choose not to. 

[MN Fisher]

Just now, Glaucus said:

I'm not some kind of extremist who hates people that eat them though. I really don't care what other people do. I choose not to. 

Thank you for 'allowing' me to enjoy my catch.

[Glaucus]

7 minutes ago, CrankFate said:

I have never eaten, kept or killed a LMB or SMB.

I've killed a few that I know about. Probably many more that I don't know about. Part of the sport. They don't always survive being caught, especially after a gut hook or gill damage. 

Just now, MN Fisher said:

Thank you for 'allowing' me to enjoy my catch.

I don't allow or disallow you to do anything. I'd never say a word to you about it unless it got brought up, such as this thread. 

[roadwarrior]

No, never. 

 

However, I don't think legal "Keep and Catch" is wrong.  

[gim]

I just don’t care for the taste of bass. It reminds me of mud, especially in the warmer summer months. Up here in the north there’s way better options for eating fish than bass. Walleyes, perch, trout, and crappies all taste way better. Pike are even ok too but they have a lot of bones and they’re super slimy.

The problem with keeping bass up here is that they take so long to get replaced. They grow so slowly up in northern waters and they’re not stocked so the only recruitment is natural reproduction. It wouldn’t take long to decimate a population here.

[MN Fisher]

2 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I just don’t care for the taste of bass. It reminds me of mud, especially in the warmer summer months. Up here in the north there’s way better options for eating fish than bass. Walleyes, perch, trout, and crappies all taste way better.

I've never eaten a 'muddy' LMB, a little 'gamy' maybe but I like that. I'm not a fan of walleye/sauger...different taste buds perhaps. Crappie and Bluegill are very good - just takes too many to make a decent meal.

 

Trout I'd prefer, but I don't travel very far from home for various reasons and there's only two trout lakes in my range...and no streams/rivers. So trout is a once in a while thing for me...but very much enjoyed.

[WRB]

My wife's family are from Minnesota that summered in Canada and shore lunches are a big part of a fishing outing. I grew up in SoCal and never knew what a shore lunch was, we caught fish to eat, mostly trout and sometimes crappie for dinner but rarely ate bass. When I started to salt water fish more we ate mostly ocean fish like salt water White Sea bass, Yellowtail, dorado, rock fish, halibut and tuna. 

My inlaws prefer walleyes and occasional baked lake trout, they didn't eat bass or pike.

Occasionally I kept a LMB to eat and my wife liked it, very different from the bass they had up north with firmer white meat similar to walleye. 

The water quality and specie of fish has a lot to do with how it taste, hard to beat a Canadian walleye shore lunch!

Tom

[punch]

Nope, and every time I see someone keep a nice bass I cry a little bit inside.