Bass Recipes

[T-Billy]

 

[QED]

I'm not a huge fan of fried foods for home cooking (too lazy to do the cleanup of adjacent areas and oil disposal is a pain), but corn starch makes for a lighter fried coating than flour or corn meal, which works well for delicate ingredients such as fish and other seafood.

[GreenPig]

5 hours ago, T-Billy said:

Y'all are killin me!!! I'm out of backstraps. My cousins talked my elderly aunt into selling the farm. Lost my happy hunting ground last month. I've had 76 acres of prime whitetail woods to myself for years. Oh well, it was awesome while it lasted. End of an era.

This thread got me hankerin for a fish dinner too. I think I'll keep a limit of bass later this week and try that mustard fried recipe the Robertson's are always talkin about.

 

Sorry for your loss.

[Bluebasser86]

I ate a ton of fish growing up out of necessity. We fished for anything that would bite and kept anything that was legal and probably quite a few that weren't. Of all the fish I remember eating, bass were by far the worse, probably why we never targeted them since they were plentiful and easy to catch. I wish I liked to eat them so I could make use of the slot limit lakes by my house, but man they're just awful tasting and packed full of worms ?

[QED]

11 hours ago, WRB said:

Our coastal white sea bass, stripe bass and halibut are good eating fish. Off shore fresh tuna like Albacore, Dorado and Wahoo are my favorite fish to catch and eat.. LMB caught from our colder water clear reservoirs and also good eating fish. I prefer Crappie over fresh water bass.

Hard to beat Walleyes cooked open fire shore lunch in Canada.

Today it’s wild caught Costco fish BBQ’d with lemon, olive oil and Cajon spices are a weekly meal.

C & R has become a religion for some anglers. 

Tom

 

Striped bass are good eats.  They work well steamed too, but are too large to do whole.  Caught this one on an ultralight casting rig.  The reel in the picture is new, but the rod is the real deal.

[CrashVector]

Blackened bass/catfish/panfish is quickly becoming my favorite way to eat them since I try to limit how much fried stuff I eat.

 

Tony Chachere's Spice n Herbs is THE best.  Put a good dusting on both sides 

 

Hot black iron skillet, a spray of olive oil, heat until smoking hot.

 

Cook the fish until just before the seasonings burn.  Flip and repeat.

 

This recipe is Cajun approved!

 

P.S. in my opinion, bream is better.  I only keep bass if they're gill hooked.

[TnRiver46]

15 hours ago, QED said:

I'm not a huge fan of fried foods for home cooking (too lazy to do the cleanup of adjacent areas and oil disposal is a pain), but corn starch makes for a lighter fried coating than flour or corn meal, which works well for delicate ingredients such as fish and other seafood.

I have a bucket type fryer from the 70s, just plug it in outside in the carport and the oil gets to 400 pretty quick. I re use the oil many times over but when it’s no longer useable I just pour it on a cliff in my yard with undesirable vegetation growing on it . I poured it out in the nice part of the yard once and it killed a small spot in the grass, wife didn’t like that 

 

toss some beer battered onion rings in there. It’s so tasty it will make your tongue beat your brains out trying to get to it 

 

[JustJames]

Eating bass? 

???

[the reel ess]

does anyone use Redfish Magic seasoning and grill/sautee/pan sear bass?

[Catt]

14 hours ago, CrashVector said:

This recipe is Cajun approved!

 

Not by this Cajun!

 

Cajuns liking "Blackened" fish is a myth, it's called burnt & we throw it in the trashcan.

[Mobasser]

Crappie are my own favourite to eat, but I sometimes keep a couple of bass to cook.                           All I do is fillet them, put in an egg milk mix, flour, and fry to golden brown. Salt and pepper to taste, and give two or three shots of Zatarains Cajun hot sauce. The Zatarains sauce is the best I've tried so far.

[gim]

On 10/25/2021 at 1:53 PM, TnRiver46 said:

Largemouth is my favorite freshwater fish to eat 

Your opinion is clearly tainted.  You actually eat a goose LOL

 

Not a big fan of eating bass.  There's much better palatable options of freshwater fish here than bass, including northern pike which are more abundant and easier to catch.  Plus the daily bag limit is 10 and they NEED to be removed considerably from many or our lakes and rivers here.

 

Bass take a long time to reach quality size up here in the north.  A biologist once told me in person at an Elite AOY event that they take 10 years to reach 5 pounds/20 inches this far north.  That's not a renewable resource here.  If we started harvesting them regularly up here, they'd get decimated very quickly.  Plus they are not stocked here at all either and we rely solely on natural reproduction to keep their population healthy. That being said, selective harvest of a small bass of about 12 inches here and there is not going to make a dent in their population.

[Smells like fish]

6 hours ago, Bass_Fishing_Socal said:

Eating bass? 

???

Ah yes, bear vomit… ?

[TnRiver46]

49 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Your opinion is clearly tainted.  You actually eat a goose LOL

 

Not a big fan of eating bass.  There's much better palatable options of freshwater fish here than bass, including northern pike which are more abundant and easier to catch.  Plus the daily bag limit is 10 and they NEED to be removed considerably from many or our lakes and rivers here.

 

Bass take a long time to reach quality size up here in the north.  A biologist once told me in person at an Elite AOY event that they take 10 years to reach 5 pounds/20 inches this far north.  That's not a renewable resource here.  If we started harvesting them regularly up here, they'd get decimated very quickly.  Plus they are not stocked here at all either and we rely solely on natural reproduction to keep their population healthy. That being said, selective harvest of a small bass of about 12 inches here and there is not going to make a dent in their population.

Any biologist is going to set the limits the complete opposite of what you just typed. It doesn’t matter one bit how many years it takes a fish to get big. If it’s ten years old, that means it has already spawned 10 times and is ready for harvest in the eyes of a biologist. The smaller fish are the ones they always protect with minimum length limits because they represent the future 

 

when you harvest a mature adult, it just opens up a spot for another fish to take its place. Same with hunting, you don’t shoot fawns or spikes 

 

wise harvest of mature adults is and always will be the gold standard of wildlife and fisheries management. Sure there are some slot limits in places but they still always allow a mature adult to be harvested. Minimum length limits are much more common, I would say over 95% of all limits are minimum length 

 

before everyone jumps all over me, this isn’t just spit balling. I do have a degree in wildlife/fisheries management 

 

also it is physically impossible for humans to decimate fish populations with rod and reel on any water much bigger than a pond 

[PressuredFishing]

11 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Any biologist is going to set the limits the complete opposite of what you just typed. It doesn’t matter one bit how many years it takes a fish to get big. If it’s ten years old, that means it has already spawned 10 times and is ready for harvest in the eyes of a biologist. The smaller fish are the ones they always protect with minimum length limits because they represent the future 

 

when you harvest a mature adult, it just opens up a spot for another fish to take its place. Same with hunting, you don’t shoot fawns or spikes 

 

wise harvest of mature adults is and always will be the gold standard of wildlife and fisheries management. Sure there are some slot limits in places but they still always allow a mature adult to be harvested. Minimum length limits are much more common, I would say over 95% of all limits are minimum length 

 

before everyone jumps all over me, this isn’t just spit balling. I do have a degree in wildlife/fisheries management 

 

also it is physically impossible for humans to decimate fish populations with rod and reel on any water much bigger than a pond 

This is true ^ That is why you are not allowed to harvest bass smaller than 12" because they are healthy and can take the bigger basses spots, Bigger bass are just closer to natural death because they are older, so getting rid of the old ones in the long run is better for the environment. The culture has turned large mouth bass into a golden ox to be worshiped, just as the Eurasian culture puts carp on a pedastal. Both fish are not rare by any means but both cultures worship them as if they are a near extinct species. the issue is not about the fish but the culture.

[gim]

4 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

The smaller fish are the ones they always protect with minimum length limits because they represent the future 

 

when you harvest a mature adult, it just opens up a spot for another fish to take its place. Same with hunting, you don’t shoot fawns or spikes 

 

wise harvest of mature adults is and always will be the gold standard of wildlife and fisheries management. Sure there are some slot limits in places but they still always allow a mature adult to be harvested. Minimum length limits are much more common, I would say over 95% of all limits are minimum length 

 

Holy Hannah dude calm the f down.

Pretty much everything you just typed is inaccurate here based on the harvest restrictions of game fish in Minnesota. Harvest of large trophy fish is very restrictive here. In fact, you can’t harvest ANY smallmouth bass on Mille Lacs Lake over 17 inches, period. Most of our bigger walleye lakes do not allow the harvest of larger fish either. The small fish are not protected here and those are the fish that are being primarily harvested here. Walleyes are highly sought after here to eat, and they heavily restrict the harvest of them over 20 inches. Very few restrictions with minimum size fish here. Before you attempt to cut my balls off here, I do not make the laws. I only abide by them. What they’re doing here is protecting spawning fish NOW. Not future spawning fish. If you don’t protect mature spawning fish, you will have no more reproduction. Over harvest of large northern pike by anglers here is the primary reason our lakes are full of small aggressive ones. I worked on this when I worked for the DNR and helped gather data in the field.

 

I recently joined the Mille Lacs Smallmouth Alliance which is a conservation organization that is dedicated to preserving the fishery with large, trophy caliber fish and limiting the harvest of all brown bass in the lake. It’s working too, as it was recently ranked as the top bass fishery in the entire country by BASS.

 

I actually do shoot fawns when I deer hunt. The reason is that they taste a lot better than the bucks do that are pumped full of hormones during the rut and peeing on themselves. Would I shoot a big buck? Yes, of course. But no way I’m eating that piece of leather. I’ll donate it. Here in Minnesota there is a voluntary donation program for unwanted deer so someone will make use of it. Just not me. I keep the head and the antlers.

[PressuredFishing]

6 minutes ago, gimruis said:

 

Holy Hannah dude calm the f down.

Pretty much everything you just typed is inaccurate here based on the harvest restrictions of game fish in Minnesota. Harvest of large trophy fish is very restrictive here. In fact, you can’t harvest ANY smallmouth bass on Mille Lacs Lake over 17 inches, period. Most of our bigger walleye lakes do not allow the harvest of larger fish either. The small fish are not protected here and those are the fish that are being primarily harvested here. Walleyes are highly sought after here to eat, and they heavily restrict the harvest of them over 20 inches. Very few restrictions with minimum size fish here. Before you attempt to cut my balls off here, I do not make the laws. I only abide by them. What they’re doing here is protecting spawning fish NOW. Not future spawning fish. If you don’t protect mature spawning fish, you will have no more reproduction. Over harvest of large northern pike by anglers here is the primary reason our lakes are full of small aggressive ones. I worked on this when I worked for the DNR and helped gather data in the field.

 

I recently joined the Mille Lacs Smallmouth Alliance which is a conservation organization that is dedicated to preserving the fishery with large, trophy caliber fish and limiting the harvest of all brown bass in the lake. It’s working too, as it was recently ranked as the top bass fishery in the entire country by BASS.

 

I actually do shoot fawns when I deer hunt. The reason is that they taste a lot better than the bucks do that are pumped full of hormones during the rut and peeing on themselves. Would I shoot a big buck? Yes, of course. But no way I’m eating that piece of leather. I’ll donate it. Here in Minnesota there is a voluntary donation program for unwanted deer so someone will make use of it. Just not me. I keep the head and the antlers.

I dont think hes talking about Minnesota

[slonezp]

Eat it or don't. It's a fricken fish. Deep fried or bacon wrapped. Don't matter to me.

[TnRiver46]

16 hours ago, gimruis said:

 

Holy Hannah dude calm the f down.

Pretty much everything you just typed is inaccurate here based on the harvest restrictions of game fish in Minnesota. Harvest of large trophy fish is very restrictive here. In fact, you can’t harvest ANY smallmouth bass on Mille Lacs Lake over 17 inches, period. Most of our bigger walleye lakes do not allow the harvest of larger fish either. The small fish are not protected here and those are the fish that are being primarily harvested here. Walleyes are highly sought after here to eat, and they heavily restrict the harvest of them over 20 inches. Very few restrictions with minimum size fish here. Before you attempt to cut my balls off here, I do not make the laws. I only abide by them. What they’re doing here is protecting spawning fish NOW. Not future spawning fish. If you don’t protect mature spawning fish, you will have no more reproduction. Over harvest of large northern pike by anglers here is the primary reason our lakes are full of small aggressive ones. I worked on this when I worked for the DNR and helped gather data in the field.

 

I recently joined the Mille Lacs Smallmouth Alliance which is a conservation organization that is dedicated to preserving the fishery with large, trophy caliber fish and limiting the harvest of all brown bass in the lake. It’s working too, as it was recently ranked as the top bass fishery in the entire country by BASS.

 

I actually do shoot fawns when I deer hunt. The reason is that they taste a lot better than the bucks do that are pumped full of hormones during the rut and peeing on themselves. Would I shoot a big buck? Yes, of course. But no way I’m eating that piece of leather. I’ll donate it. Here in Minnesota there is a voluntary donation program for unwanted deer so someone will make use of it. Just not me. I keep the head and the antlers.

[LrgmouthShad]

Wow. Hey let's talk about fish frying guys. 

[QED]

9 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Wow. Hey let's talk about fish frying guys. 

Battered and fried fish fillets with fried hush puppies are always good.  But steaming with aromatics provides a much different and more delicate presentation.  Both have their appropriate use cases. 

[tander]

I like my fish with salt, pepper, and yellow corn meal. Crappie is first on my list of eating but bass is a close second. Saying that, I don't keep a lot of bass but I don't feel bad when I do.

[gim]

Fish are going to taste like the batter you pan fry or deep fry them in.  Do you want to taste the batter or the fish?  Or the tarter sauce you're dipping them in?  You might as well deep fry chicken or hot dogs if you want to taste the batter.

 

@MN Fisher recipe is the best one.  Its not loaded up and covered in batter.

[JbroBass]

I stopped keeping bass for eating (LM/SM) when I was a kid, but I did enjoy the taste of bass caught in northern waters. Now striped bass, that is some seriously good eating and I always kept any that met the required length. (Thankfully for the striped bass, it was only a few as the limit was 36" when I did most of my fishing for them.)

[the reel ess]

23 hours ago, PressuredFishing said:

I dont think hes talking about Minnesota

I think he's right though. I've heard it explained this way. A trophy bass is a freak of nature. The odds are overwhelmingly against any single bass getting huge. They have to beat the odds regarding predation, nutrition and genetics to get there, not to mention environment. When you take a big one one out it might not be replaced for a long time if at all. Smaller fish stand very small chance of getting to trophy size. They're the ones who have not yet beaten the odds. Once a fish reaches say 5 lbs. it stands a much better chance of reaching 8 or more than does a 2 pounder. Just because you take a trophy out of a fishery doesn't mean another will take its place. There are many variables that come into play though. The biggest key to growing lots of big bass is most likely unlimited forage.

 

Also, smaller fish taste better IMO.