WV Bluegills

[WV Sawmiller]

  Yesterday afternoon I decided to take my 17 y/o (#2) granddaughter, Abbie, who is spending a few days with us, to the lake to catch a mess of bluegills. It was hot but I figured we'd find shady spots that time of day. We loaded up, stopped and got a dozen worms, ice, gas for the outboard and a cold drink for Abbie and got to Bluestone Lake about 4:30 or so. Of course we brought Sampson along.

  I motored to a spot across the lake about 1/2 mile away and cut up my first nightcrawler into 3-5 pieces and baited up 4 poles for us to use. Each of us started with a 10' and a 13' fiberglass pole with a #4 circle hook, a bb shot and a float set to about 3' deep. We got to the spot and Abbie had landed 2 bluegills before I could get a hook in the water. We quickly found 2 poles was too much to use because while we unhooked a fish or rebait one the other one was stealing the bait or wrapping you around an underwater root. We eased along under the trees in the shade pitching the baits near underwater limbs and logs and steadily picking up fish as we went. Mostly I was baiting and taking fish off. Once in a while Abbie would take one of her own off it it wasn't too floppy or hooked too deep.

    One young man passed us in his boat and we talked a bit. He was down to his last, dead minnow and he asked if we had an extras we could sell him. I told him we only had worms but he could possibly buy some more minnows at the Marina 1/2 mile away. He said he had never been there and did not know they sold bait. I suspect they were still open because there were boaters and kayakers on the lake who had rented from them. You can access it from the water side. I hope it worked out for him.

  After about an hour or so we had probably fished a couple hundred yards of shoreline and I heard another fisherman grinding the starter on his 50 hp Johnson motor but no luck starting it. We took in our lines and went over to check and asked if he needed a tow and he did so we towed him about 1/3 of a mile back to the landing. He offered to pay and I told him to return the favor to someone else when he got the chance. Turned out he was parked right beside me.

    We left him there and returned to fish some more just up from where we had been before. We fished till a little after 8 pm then returned to the landing and loaded up with a total of 54 bluegills. None were real big but all were fairly decent eating size of 7-8 oz I guess. We stopped and got some sodas and ice cream at the grocery store for Abbie then came home and I cleaned fish till 1130 or so.

  It was great to spend another afternoon fishing with Abbie. It has been a couple years I guess since she has been with me. Truth be told she probably caught more fish than I did. Usually the first I would know she had a fish on would be when I would hear that monofilament line singing as it ripped through the water and I'd look back and see her pole bent double then at the end of his run she'd jerk him out of the lake and toss him in my lap to unhook and maybe re-bait.


Not huge but a good 2 gallon pan full by the time I got them cleaned. This would have been a great time to have had one of those rocket scalers you tow behind the boat. I know they scale the fish as you tow them and I've heard if you gut and maybe de-head them they will be pretty well cleaned and ready to cook by the time you get to the landing. I may have to keep my eye open for one of them but I don't remember seing them much up here. Most of the time when I'm fishing for bream it is for live bait for my catfish lines but, in fact, a big ol' bluegill is my favorite eating fish.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I keep thinking that easing a boat along a shaded shoreline (I love my trolling motor - as a kid we had to scull a johnboat from the rear using an oar in one hand to move the boat along or hold in place in the wind or current while fishing with your other hand) and pitching crickets (we can't get them up here) or worms for bluegills or minnows for crappie is the epitome of fishing. Its relaxing and quiet and you never know what you will see overhead or along the bank. 

    For their size bluegills are much harder fighters than crappies and I hate to clean crappies (Specs for Caveman and others there in central Fla and such) because I always get stuck on their fins. We used to use ultra-light spinning rods and reels with a float 1'- 2' deep and pitch them under overhanging limbs and along steep banks with a worm, cricket or baby crawfish and such. We could not fish deeper because we could not cast it with 4.5'-5' rods. A simple pole is much easier to control and more laid back. With a foot controlled trolling motor you can often use poles with different baits or depth or just to cover more ground quicker. If a fish steals your bait on one rig immediately move the other one to the same spot.

   It is even more fun with grandkids or an older person who does not get to go fishing very much because it makes memories for the kids and brings back memories for the old timers. I think we should have a national day where we all go take an old person out of a nursing home or such and take them fishing with a simple pole rig. My mom is 95 and loves to come up here and help me catch little bream for bait to use on my catfish (droplines) hooks and watch the limbs shaking as I take the big catfish off. She never baits a hook or ties on a line or takes a fish off. That is my job - same with my younger (okay older ones who should know better too) grandkids. The goal is not to catch fish - it is for the kids and old timers to have fun.

   With my kids when they were little if the fish did not bite we'd go catch green frogs in the cattails or look for eggs and baby birds in the nests in the bushes on stumps in the lake or go let them play on a sandbar and collets shells and such. They were always excited to go again. I don't ever remember them saying they were ready to go home.

   Yesterday's trip keeps reminding me of those enjoyable times and I look forward to more of them with the grandkids.

[thecfarm]

I'm looking forward to more stories. 

[Onthesauk]

75 years ago my grandfather use to take me fishing for perch and sunfish, a retired farmer in Minn.  I would have been about 4-5 years old.  Fished for them exactly as you describe, or a piece of corn kernel.  He use to fry roe, breaded with corn meal.  At that age thought that was pretty fancy!

[WV Sawmiller]

OTS,

  I love fish roe from bream and crappie and such if I can save it without breaking them. I don't save it from my catfish because of bloody streaks in it although I bet it is really good. I can remember Dad buy roe mullet from a fish market in central Fla when the mullet were getting ready to spawn. Lots of places I have been people would not even eat mullet but if you stop in any little Gulf Coast fish shack in Fla there is a good chance the fish of the day will be fresh mullet.

  Okay - back to the bluegills. I packaged them today. I put 6 in a quart bag and will drag out a pack to eat every time I cook a mess of catfish. Most folks prefer the catfish because they are boneless fillets and the bluegills have bones to work around. I still think the bluegils are better eating.

  I tried the paper towel dam in each quart vacuum seal bag and like the way it worked. It would suck the air out then when I saw the dam started to get damp I'd hit the seal button and it sealed them perfectly.

  I had 2 bags I ended up double bagging because either I did not pull enough air out or the seal was not perfect or one of the fins poked a tiny air hole in the plastic and let air seep back in. Revised count when I counted the bags was 56 total bluegills. Good thing we stopped when we did as the limit for the 2 of us would have been 60 total and I don't want to run afoul of the local possum sheriff.

    Now I just need to fry up a batch. Yuuum!.

[caveman]

I was just going to mention that I don't like freezing fish that have fins due to them poking holes in the bags and then getting air in the bags.  Every one of my fishing friends used to have the wire creel baskets, but I have not seen one in years.  When we used to catch a lot of blue gills, we'd use tablespoons to scale them with-two or three scrapes down each side and they were done.

I'm glad you took the time to tow the other angle in.  Being dead in the water is not a pleasant experience, paying a tow bill just makes it worse.  JMoore, another friend and I had a $975 tow bill one stormy night in May, 1996 out in the Gulf.  It turned out that a bucket handle in the console shorted out the starter switch.  I keep tow insurance now.

It's sure fun to catch fish with grandchildren or children.  That type of fishing will help you develop the patience needed to guide golfers on fishing trips.  I'm glad y'all caught them.

[Magicman]

I don't like freezing fish that have fins due to them poking holes in the bags and then getting air in the bags. 

My bream and bass cleaning is skinning and removing the fins.  No scaling.  

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn, @Magicman 

    I've never seen that done. How do you do it?

[Magicman]

Cut the head off also removing the vent.  Slide your knife under the skin and cut it from head end to tail along each side of the fins.  Catch the skin between your thumb and knife and pull it off from head end to the tail.  Slice to the ribs on each side of the fins and pull them out.  Now you can feel the tiny bones on each side at the top of the ribs.  Make a cut on each side of them and they are easily removed.  Removing the tail is optional.

This is the only way that I have cleaned bream, etc. since I invented that method over 50 years ago.

[beenthere]

Lynn
Reads just like the method I use, and described much better than I think I could if putting it in writing. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I'd love to see a video or pictures. Does this only work with those man-eating bluegills like Robert raises or does it work for the 6-8 inch versions like I showed in the OP?

   I remember when I was a kid we never threw anything back. If it was 3-4 inches and got on a hook it went on the stringer. Mom and Grandma used to fry them real brown and ate bones, tails and all. Times are better now and I can be more selective.

[Magicman]

Yes, it works very well with less than Robert's, or Texas size.  You will also be amazed getting rid of those tiny bones just above the ribs. 

[Magicman]

since I invented that method over 50 years ago.

Reads just like the method I use

Sounds like a Patent Infringement to me.  Hold my Purple Drank whilst I call my lawyer.

[YellowHammer]

I got a fish rib bone stuck and sprung out in my throat once, it went from scary, to painful to laughable (for everyone else) because it just arched up and stuck like a spring, about halfway down, I could breathe but it just wouldn't come out. 

I finally got it out by shoving a few big hush puppies down, and I've never eaten a none fillet or otherwise bone in fish serving again.  

So I fillet everything, even catfish.  Every bream will have a beautiful fish stick along its backbone, and big ones will have a real fillet.  

It only takes a few seconds each side, (cut along the backbone, one stroke, flip with the tail skin attached, and slide the knife down the skin one stroke, and done) 

[WV Sawmiller]

I got a fish rib bone stuck and sprung out in my throat once, it went from scary, to painful to laughable (for everyone else) because it just arched up and stuck like a spring, about halfway down, I could breathe but it just wouldn't come out.

I finally got it out by shoving a few big hush puppies down, and I've never eaten a none fillet or otherwise bone in fish serving again. 

So I fillet everything, even catfish.  Every bream will have a beautiful fish stick along its backbone, and big ones will have a real fillet. 

It only takes a few seconds each side, (cut along the backbone, one stroke, flip with the tail skin attached, and slide the knife down the skin one stroke, and done)

Robert,

   Everyone I knew had a fish bone stuck in their throat at one or more points. The old standby was bread or hush puppies as a cure to break it free. We'd just wad up a piece of light bread (Wasp nest as my old mentor called it) and chew it a time or two and swallow and usually it would pull it free.

    I don't know why but we never filleted catfish (or any fish but especially catfish) even though when I moved up here I found how easy it was to do. We used to catch a lot of catfish up to about 10 lbs but anything over that was bragging size back then. When I got up here and 20+ lb fish were common I had to start filleting them to fit the fish in the freezer.

   The last bass I caught was a little over 4 lbs and I caught it on a bushhook back after Mother's Day and I did fillet him as you describe. I never tried it with a bream and have never found it hard to fry them whole and when ready to eat I pull the backbone out and pinch off that little fish stick you describe and eat that. I may have to look on line and verify the process and try that next time.

   I still think bream are much better eating than bass and prefer catfish second to bream and over bass. 

    I still say the best fish I ever ate was tilapia grilled over local made charcoal with an old tire wheel as a stove in a remote village in Cameroon in West Africa. The lady scaled and gutted them, rubbed them with local made peanut oil (might have been palm oil) and Maggi (a local seasoning) powder and threw them on the grill and cooked them. She scored each side 3 times to let the steam out and left the heads on. Depending on the size I paid between 25-35 cents each for them and the first I bought the lady served it on a torn off piece of used cement sack. When I went back for seconds for me and my wife and guide she served them on a used community plastic plate. (The cement sack was probably cleaner.) I still say it was the best fish I have ever eaten.

Here is my Journal Entry from 19 February 2008 about these fish:

            We go up to the village to look for some cool water or Cokes and find a couple of small stores. We buy a large cold Coke from a lady nursing an infant behind a chicken wire screen. In front of her store we see a lady cooking fish over charcoal and a wire grill. She is also cooking long tubes of cassava in leaves. We buy several of the fish which look and taste like our bluegills. I assume they are Tilapia. They have been scaled, gutted, heads left on and scored on several places to speed the cooking. The lady spread locally made peanut oil on them before and after grilling them We first buy three which she puts on a piece of brown paper from a used cement sack. These three fish cost 500 cfa or $1.10. Becky buys several tomatoes from the adjacent open air stand to eat with hers. We sit on a concrete step in the shade nearby and eat our fish. Across from us is another small shop which I later learn is the village pharmacy. The vendor rushes out to loan us a wooden stool about 15" tall by ten inches square at the base and six inches square at the top. This is very generous and thoughtful of him. I eat my fish and I find that it is very tasty so I go back and order two more and eat them. This time the lady serves them on a thin plastic plate since she sees we are dining in the area and we are repeat customers. I finish mine and go back and get Becky another. She enjoys her meal of fish and fresh tomatoes. When we get ready to leave we return the pharmacist's stool and thank him for his kindness.
 
            We return the lady's plastic plates and leave the village again crossing the power dam and saying goodbye to the Security guard. To this day I can't ever remember eating better fish than these grilled over a tire wheel full of charcoal on this dirty, dusty alley of a street in this unknown fishing village in Cameroon.

[Magicman]

The fish bones that generally give folks problems are those tiny bones at the top of the ribs.  The ones that I described being felt after skinning and very easily removed with two simple cuts.

[YellowHammer]

Filleting is extremely fast, certainly faster than conventional gutting, finning, and scaling, and produces only quality restaurant grade meat. 

No bones, no scales, no fins, no heads, just the meat.