Who do you eat ?

[cyclops2]

I start with perch. Then Smallmouth Bass.   That is it. Both taste similar . Much better than the dock & still water fish.  

[MassYak85]

I've had perch and bass before. But to me perch is too much work for how much meat you get and I feel bad eating bass unless I know they're gonna die anyways. I'm not against eating small slot size ones though. Wild rainbows are my target food fish of choice. 

[Born 2 fish]

Northern pike is my favorite.

[MN Fisher]

What ever I catch pretty much...except Northern Pike - hate dealing with the 'Y' bones.

 

Perch, Crappie and Sunnies - decent size ones go home

Largemouth - 2#-3# have a 50/50 chance of ending up in my freezer. Smaller and you don't get enough, larger and the taste starts getting 'off'.

Walleye - 2#-4#...same as Largemouth

Trout - local lake has stocked Rainbows and I fish it every now and then. 1.5#+ go home with me.

[cyclops2]

I & my electric fish knife buddy only do the 9" to 12" Perch. Never any of the bigger breeders.

 

That may have changed next year. Our imported Gobies are feeding all the bigger game fish. So the sizes are getting bigger & more of them.  

[12poundbass]

I’m not a big fish eater. If I do eat fish I prefer walleye. Fish doesn’t get any better than walleye. 
 

I’d like to try crappie next year. I’ve yet to have it. 

[roadwarrior]

11 minutes ago, 12poundbass said:

I’m not a big fish eater. If I do eat fish I prefer walleye. Fish doesn’t get any better than walleye. 
 

I’d like to try crappie next year. I’ve yet to have it. 

Comparable. Sweet, firm white meat. I'm not jazzed fishing for them. I like my friends

catching, cleaning and frying them. Their wives make some killer hush puppies, too!

 

?

[Jig Man]

Crappie, walleye, white bass, and an occasional spot are the fish that I catch and eat.  I don’t eat largemouth because of the way they smell.  I don’t eat smallmouth because it takes 10 years for them to reach legal length.

[BrianMDTX]

Big ol’ bluegills. Floured with salt and pepper and fried in butter. Served with a little butter and a squirt of lemon juice. 

 

Good eatin’! 

[snake95]

This is pretty location dependent.  Close to home in Georgia I only eat trout.

 

Not opposed to eating just about anything but in my mind trout are for eating, bass are for catching and releasing.

 

I really love to eat trout.

 

I would never think to cook and eat sunfish species (I don't mean bass and crappie).  Change my mind.

 

I grew up in a place that doesn't have a lot of crappie, so I'm not great at targeting them.

 

We don't really have populations of yellow perch and walleye to target in our immediate area.

7 minutes ago, Jig Man said:

and an occasional spot

This is interesting!  Why spots over other bass species?  Are they better eating?

[DitchPanda]

In order for me Bluegill-perch-walleye-crappie-cold water channel cats. Yes that's right I didn't put Walleye at the top...oh no blasphemy! It is a good fish to eat but it is boring..extremely bland. Perch are very similar but because of the small size they fry up crisper and they are dynamite in a fish taco..that is why I put them ahead of Walleye. My favorite has been bluegill for a long time...they are small fry up perfect and they have a sweet nutty flavor that I love.

That said I eat Pike, white bass and yellow bass as well but they aren't as available to me locally. I'd like to eat trout but all that's around me are stockers and I don't care for them. Also I grew up on the gulf coast eating redfish, speckled trout,flounder, whiting,sheepshead  and croaker. I miss those.

[Bluegillslayer]

In freshwater I eat trout and sometimes bluegill, I mostly eat saltwater bottom fish like flounder, sanddabs, and sculpin, but I have also ate sharks and greenling. I never have eaten any type of bass.  

[Big Hands]

A friend and I did a couple of side by side taste tests many years (decades) ago. Our conclusion (along with others present) was that the smaller channel cats were the tastiest, followed by the panfish (bluegill/crappie), then rainbow trout, and bass placed last. 

 

I honestly can't remember the last time I kept a freshwater fish other than trout to eat.

[ThatZX14Fella]

I'm not picky when it comes to fish. I'll eat pretty much any kind of cooked meat.

[TnRiver46]

I eat white bass the most because they have no length limit and 15 bag limit statewide. They are also EXTREMELY abundant and bite like sharks. Bluegill are great eating but they of course are smaller than most fish making more work for less meat. I catch more and more walleye ever year and of course they are great but still scarce in numbers down here compared to bass . Largemouth/smallmouth/spots are all delicious white meat, I would have to agree @Jig Manthat spots are the best. 
 

I like crappie but fiancé hates them, she says they are “mushy”

 

catfish is good but I get tired of it sometimes. I’m not sure why? Also they recommend not to eat them out of the TN river 

1 hour ago, Jig Man said:

Crappie, walleye, white bass, and an occasional spot are the fish that I catch and eat.  I don’t eat largemouth because of the way they smell.  I don’t eat smallmouth because it takes 10 years for them to reach legal length.

biologists set the limits that way because old fish have already bred many times and they are going to die soon whether you eat them or not. Sometimes you can find a slot limit here and there but for the most part, minimum length limits allow for older fish to be harvested as opposed to young ones. On my home pool, a smallmouth has to be 18” to keep and most people release those because they are everybody’s favorite to fish catch. On a few tributaries they allow you to keep smallmouth under 13” because they are loaded with tiny fish. In the smoky mountains national park you can keep 5 trout over 7” because by the time they reach that size, odds are they won’t make it to the next year. Sometime I feel like keeping small fish would be better for the populations but it’s rarely legal  

[J._Bricker]

I’ve kinda gotten away from eating warm water species. 

Salmon, steelhead, and non farm raised trout, broiled, BBQ’d, baked after being wrapped in foil or smoked. I do miss going up to the Quinault in Washington this time of year steelhead fishing and then being able to give away smoked steelhead fillets as Christmas presents, sorry I drifted....

Ahi tuna broiled or pan seared, as sashimi or poke’, other tuna (Yellowfin, Albacore) broiled, pan seared or out of a can. And if it’s out of a can, with onions in the mix.
Halibut, broiled or baked.
Rockfish or lingcod fried as fish and chips.

And with a barley pop...

[Michigander]

Walleye is turbo delicious. I don't get to fish for them often enough.

[billmac]

Pike, walleye, panfish.

[gim]

1 hour ago, 12poundbass said:

If I do eat fish I prefer walleye. Fish doesn’t get any better than walleye

Hard to beat a small fresh caught eater sized walleye, but jumbo perch is even better. It has a bit firmer filet, but the issue is finding and catching enough sizable ones for a meal.

 

Pike are ok out of cold water if you know how to filet them properly. And they really are the one species of fish that is always willing to bite. Plus the small ones actually do need to be harvested around here because they are too abundant.

 

I don’t keep very many fish, but on rare occasion I’ll keep a small walleye, a few slab crappies, or a pike for pickling. For the first time in 22 years, I did not harvest a single fish during the entire season. Every single fish got released fully alive.

[bulldog1935]

White bass is the freshwater meat fish.  

Especially on fly fishing forums, you hear people talking about C&R with them - Why? 

They are fecund, the females laying 200,000 - 500,000 eggs.  They live 3 years, and where feral, are found impossible to eradicate.  They deplete the forage base for other species.  

These are all 2-y-o males caught on fly rod in a spring spawning run - I released everything else.  Been doing this since I was 12-y-o.  Finished my bag limit while I was letting my friends fillet from my stringer.  

 

 

From the coast, I'll add to this that me and my friends would rather eat speckled trout than just about any other fish.  

 

 

[bish0p]

King salmon, steelhead, yellowtail, and Dungeness crab.

[soflabasser]

Hogfish, snapper, grouper, dolphin, and other saltwater fish are my favorite fish to eat. 

[Vilas15]

Crappie, walleye, pike, perch, bluegill and brown trout. I've had smallmouth before and it was great too.

[Michigander]

56 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Hard to beat a small fresh caught eater sized walleye, but jumbo perch is even better. It has a bit firmer filet, but the issue is finding and catching enough sizable ones for a meal.

 

Pike are ok out of cold water if you know how to filet them properly. And they really are the one species of fish that is always willing to bite. Plus the small ones actually do need to be harvested around here because they are too abundant.

 

I don’t keep very many fish, but on rare occasion I’ll keep a small walleye, a few slab crappies, or a pike for pickling. For the first time in 22 years, I did not harvest a single fish during the entire season. Every single fish got released fully alive.

I didn't keep any this year either. Though a lot had to do with me missing the Whitefish run due to my friend having a COVID exposure.

[scaleface]

walleye , sauger , crappie and bluegill are my favorites . Then largemouth bass . Catfish and white bass  are too fishy tasting . I had yellow perch once and it was so good . I caught a mess of big green sunfish once ice fishing and they were excellent .