LMB vs SMB

I thought it all had to do with how big their mouths opened when you hold them up for the camera!

Grilled?  You can't grill a LMB!!!  That's like boiling a hamburger!

LMB must be filleted, battered in corn meal, deep fried, then served with hush puppies, cole slaw and sweet iced tea.

+1 against grill'n bass    Southern fish deserve southern cook'n...
Don't forget the cayenne in the cornmeal, lemon juice over the top and a side of country ham (salt cured) w/ red-eye gravy.  That's the food I grew up on!

This thread has me suddenly hankering to head down to Davis Lake in the Central Oregon Cascades and stock the freezer with bass...

As far as freshwater fish go walleyes are so much better than bass.  But that might just my having grown up on the Great Lakes talking. Largemouth always seemed so muddy, living in the warm back waters of the bay.

Walleye > Northern Pike > Perch > Bluegill > Smallmouth Bass > Largemouth Bass > Carp

GAK!

Muddy?  No... the meat is actually very light and flaky, without much fishy taste at all.

And your list is missing the #1 tastiest freshwater fish (after salmon), the crappie.



Walleye in this part of the country (Columbia/Willamette system) do not appeal to me at all.  A resident, top of the food chain predatory fish that lives on the bottom in a river filled with PCB's and and Portland's sewage. 

Plus, they remind me of this guy, and he's scary:

Not sure what "GAK" is... is that similar to oobleck?  

Anyway, notice I prefaced my statement with ... "as far as freshwater fish go".  I think most saltwater fish are superior:  tuna, yellowtail, rockfish, lingcod, halibut, salmon, etc...

I guess I never really think of salmon as freshwater.  And yeah crappie is right there with yellow perch.

Oh.. I'm right there with you ThreeWeight on any resident fish from the Columbia/Willamette system.

As far as freshwater fish go walleyes are so much better than bass.  But that might just my having grown up on the Great Lakes talking. Largemouth always seemed so muddy, living in the warm back waters of the bay.

Walleye > Northern Pike > Perch > Bluegill > Smallmouth Bass > Largemouth Bass > Carp

What about catfish and crappie?  The only freshwater fish I eat are catfish, LMB, crappie, perch, and the occasional bream (in order of preference).  Carp are different; I don't fish for them but I eat them at resteraunts under the guise of "whitefish."

Okay, guess I should have never made a list like that.  There's always room for more.  I really never did much catfish fishing growing up, so they didn't make my list.

"GAK" is what Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbs) says when his mom tries to feed him broccoli. 

The only LMB I ever filleted<sic> had mud veins all thru the meet.  GAK! 

The crappie I ate at Unity a couple of weeks ago was pretty palatable but by comparison, I'd say it was like eating a tiny, anorexic Black Rockfish.

Gimme Yellowtail/Springer/Brook Trout/Halibut/Ling/Rockfish et al any day. 

Not all crappie are anorexic...



The lakes in the Warner Wetlands area, on the west side of Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, are apparently a crappie candyland during a string of wet years.

Beautiful slab there 3wt.

Those 'mud veins' in the Bass are just extra protein Spot 

That is the biggest crappie I've ever seen! No longer a slab... that's a chopping board!!!!

Z

When I lived in Washington DC, I used to canoe and fish on two of the cities drinking water reservoirs.  Really neat lakes, built in the 1920's and 30's when the government had the foresight to also buy up a buffer of land around the reservoirs to protect them from urban development and runoff.  Anyway, these lakes would turn out GIANT crappie, but it took some knowledge to find them.  If you fished traditional techniques (small white/yellow maribou jigs, grubs, or flies near downed wood) you couldn't keep 6" to 8" long fish off your hook.  If you went deep near rock faces with small spinner baits or spoons that got down a little deeper, you'd come across 14-16" bruisers.

Was always a great summer escape from the city, and we had fresh fish to eat regularly.