small fillet's

[mellowyellow]

just curious, what's the smallest fish you ever<br />caught and cooked? when I was a kid, dad and I<br />fished for perch in niagra river, no size limit...<br />was my job to clean any/all fish, so needless to<br />say, I dealt with some small fish!<br />beer batter'd in the deep fryer... MMMMM!<br />was worth it!<br />M.Y.

 

[tronman]

Re: small fillet's

Heheheh...this thread is begging to hear the words...brook trout...

 

[roscoe]

Re: small fillet's

6-7" bluegills and smelt, some as small as 6", coolers full of them.

 

[rwise]

Re: small fillet's

MY<br />The smallest fish(?) I ever caught was 3/4" long black perch, next a 1" largmouth bass. We fish for the small black perch to use for bait!<br />Richard

 

[Fishbusters]

Re: small fillet's

When I was a kid I was allowed to fish a friend of my mom's pond. It was filled with stunted bream as well as a few crappies, bass, catfish that were of a nice size and some large turtles. The rules of fishing there was release all bass and catfish but keep all but the biggest bream and kill the turtles as they eat the baby ducks. As I loved to fish and would fish this pond for hours I caught numerous bream. Having to keep all I caught and not being one to throw away fish there were some pretty small fish that were scaled and gutted then eaten or froze. If I knew then what I know now I would have kept them alive for bait for catfish in the lake or river as they were perfect size for that. I miss that pond it was sold and someone divided the land and put a couple more houses around it.

 

[muskyone]

Re: small fillet's

smelt catch them on the great lakes take guts out eat love them

 

[one more cast]

Re: small fillet's

When I was a kid we would fish in streams only a foot or two wide and keep 4-6 inch brookies, just clean'em fry'em and eat'em bones and all.

 

[SeaMasterZ@aol.com]

Re: small fillet's

Fresh water fish - four and five inch sunfish,crappie, calicos, even some early morning undersized breakfast trout, filleted and battered, fried, good stuff!<br /><br />Salt water - butterfish by the ton in fla, but I remember, must have been about 67 or so, my dad and uncle (and us kids) would catch hundreds and HUNDREDS of little blowfish (cape may point rockpile to be exact) just a few bites in each but to me they were as good as LOBSTER!

 

[Gary Wolfer]

Re: small fillet's

Yello Perch from coastal lakes in Oregon each bite size piece batter fried makes my mouth water now.

 

[gonfishn]

Re: small fillet's

One time fishn was soooo Baad that I tried to filet my bait sucker i was using for bait...now thats small.....

 

[ebbtide176]

Re: small fillet's

is this just for fillets, or smallest fish caught/ate? i told this story long ago - i had some small sunfish(like 4"max), that i was gonna throw back. my friends wife, from thailand, wanted them. a few days later i was helping him fix car, and she made dinner. <br />-yep, those puppies were in the stir-fry. the rest were still hanging on garlands off the porch -whole

 

[LadyFish]

Re: small fillet's

The smallest for me was caught by my 4 year old grandson. It was his first fish. He begged me to clean and cook the poor little thing. I tried to explain we needed to throw it back and let it grow up a bit but he'd have nothing to do with that. He wanted his picture taken with it, he wanted to watch me clean it and ask about every internal organ he saw and even helped me cook it. He said it was the best fish he ever ate. It was more like a fish nugget. It had to have been the smalled croaker in the bay.

 

[aspeck]

Re: small fillet's

Wa just talking to my 87 year old Grandma about this - growing up we never liked it when Grandpa brought her along fishin'! Oh, we love her - it was because she never left us return any of our catch. It ALL had to be cleaned and fried! I remember a couple of trips to the river and coming home to clean 50 - 100 bluegill and rock bass - ranging from 2 inches to 8 inches (most were in the 2-4 inch category)! It is no fun to clean that many SMALL fish for a bite! My brothers and I would devise ways of catching and releasing without anyone knowing we caught, just so we wouldn't ahve to clean 'em!

 

[gaugeguy]

Re: small fillet's

Rainbow smelt by the bucketloads. Beer batter and deep fried, eat em just like french fries (I've seen bigger french fries!)

 

[farginicehole]

Re: small fillet's

Aspeck,<br /><br />Lucky for you, granny didn't catch you guys - you might have been eating the bait worms as punishment!!!

 

[aspeck]

Re: small fillet's

Eating worms? lots of protein, not punishment - they tell me I did that once when I was about 6 - fish were biting but the family was running out of worms - caught me eating them! I don't remember, but probably more meat on them than some of the bluegill we had to keep!

 

[DJ]

Re: small fillet's

Crappie Chips!<br /><br />Real thin and look like potato chips when they come out of the pan.<br /><br />Yummmmm!

 

[Scoop]

Re: small fillet's

For the kids, I kept a few of their 3 to 4" bluegill when fishing was bad. I did try my hand at filleting a couple. The fillets we so thin, they could almost be used as paper. The kids liked them though. Now the kids are grown, and we don't have to fish where the smallest ones are anymore.