Fish labeling

[bobberineyes]

Well their is a resemblance, must be distant cousins in a way. You owe me a fishin mission?  Cool, everything caught that's a legal length gets fried up for a taste test, bullhead,  rock bass, carp etc..

[Dotch]

1 hour ago, leechlake said:

Hey bobber...you think sheepshead were once lambs heads?  I owe you a fishing trip anyway and Summer will be better than that stupid eelpout thing...

Yes but they have to be a year old to be a sheepshead! 

[RebelSS]

LL, good thing we're goin' rockie fishin' and not sheephead fishing... I don't wanna be cuttin' all that wool off..... 

[bobberineyes]

You can always tell the guys out sheepshead fishin, they leavethe stringer along side the boat at full speed to get the hide off!!! Used to see it quite abit..

[LindellProStaf]

I used to have a 42' Houseboat on the St. Croix on the north side of Stillwater.  We bought a fixerup house a block away from the Marina.  Great times.  I used to catch Red Horse suckers in the spring before walleye season opened up.  They were nice 1 1/2 lb suckers.  My father in law (great guy) used to say you should keep them and fillet them.  I would say well do you want some Erv and he would say no.   ?????   Well I finally decided to fillet some of them.  They had nice white meat and filleted out like a walleye.  I froze a bunch of them.   I cooked up a bunch of them for my buddys, they were mixed with walleyes, noone including me could tell the difference.  

Ok sorry that was off topic.  When I first moved from Luverne where I grew up to Lino Lake for a job I got to go fishing with a cowboy friend of mine at Rush Lake north of  Forest Lake on their pontoon.  We were drinking beer and having a great time fishing.  Well we caught a silver colored fish and I asked is that a silver bass?  ( I had heard of them but never caught one)  Charlie didn't know cause he didn't fish much.  They just went for pontoon rides, I was the one that initiated the fishing thing.  Well we had a string full of them.  I bet we had 15 of them.  ( I didn't know if you went fast it cleaned them at that time bobber)  Well this guy comes trolling by and me the talk to anyone type of guy raise up the full stringer and said "are these silver bass"?  He just smiled and kept on trolling.   I the optimist took that to be a yes.  Well we went in to his families real nice cabin and proceeded to start cleaning these fish.  The neighbor cam over and said what are you doing with those sheepsheads?  Throw them away.  We threw them in the woods.  A week later Charlie's dad, who was my boss went to the cabin and all they could smell was those fish we threw in the woods.  He never asked me back...

[leechlake]

I've never seen a sheepshead.  I did maybe catch the state record dogfish two years ago but since I don't touch some fish we didn't keep it.  Only later did we see the record bowfin may have been in our boat.  I did just look up LPS fish and found this:  I will look forward to one of you posting this before I load the boat up heading for sheepshead country.

Reason No. 6:

Drums are delicious.

For many years, I released all the drums I caught, believing they were too bony to eat – a fallacy based on information I often heard when I was a youngster. In fact, drums do not have the many small Y-bones found in carp and suckers. Filleting your catch and removing all dark red meat along the lateral line produces boneless fish that when cooked is firm, not flaky, and delicately flavored. I find it comparable to redfish, the drum's saltwater cousin, and consider it delicious grilled, broiled, baked, fried, smoked or made into chowder or bouillabaisse.
 

For the best taste, place your catch on ice immediately. If you put 'gous in a wire basket or on a stringer, they quickly die, and the flesh soon spoils.

[LindellProStaf]

Thanks LL.  There are lots of Drum aka Sheepys on Red.  

[reinhard1]

Fishing all day and I'll chime in.  Reb,  When it say's fresh and not frozen that's what it means.  It means never frozen and I have seen this for many years.  They come in shipped in styrofoam containers with each fillet in a separate plastic bag with ice.  As far as wild vs farmed salmon,  Of course there is a difference.  too long a statement to put on here.  In short, If you eat salmon more than twice a week eat wild.  There is a argument made on that also.  The nutrition is about the same, they are raised in net's or cages or whatever you want to describe it.  they are fed pellets and this is where some folks argue about nutrition in one way or other.  PCB's is another argument.  to me,  They are fine to eat.  I don't eat salmon even once a week, but do eat it.  If it's on sale, I buy it.  It has the healthy Omega 3's just like the wild.  Most salmon eaten in the US are farm raised just like farm raised catfish..    Wild is more expensive and there are sales on them which are mostly frozen.  good luck.

[LindellProStaf]

I will talk my neighbor into eating some.  That will be a fun challenge for me.  Hope he likes them and am curious to hear about them. 

We should meet at a campgrounds on Red and have a Sheepshead contest.  They are easy to catch and we could eat them in many different ways.   We can make Boar eat the first one. 

[RebelSS]

I hate those stupid sheepsheads, drum, carp, and moon-eyes!!! Ya always think ya just got a good hit with a REAL fish...only thing Drum are good for are their earbones, called I think, otoliths, or something like that. (No, I didn't look it up) that Native Americans used to make necklaces out of. Ya, I used to smoke carp and eat that, it's good, but that was when I was a  poor and hungry teenager!!

Reinhard, I got bungled up this am about the salmon thing and the Cub ad...it was WILD CAUGHT I got mixed up about, not the wording that was in the Cub ad. I better drink my coffee before I post from now on....hey, how was the fishing??

LL, tell yer wife to go put that pkg of Drum in the truck...maybe she'll toss those out, then you'll know you've done the best thing ya can do with drum. 

[LindellProStaf]

You do know by buying farm raised (and I am sure there are pros and cons) fish it does help the natural fisheries survive.  It is only a matter of time before they and most other species of fish are depleted.  Fresh water and salt water.   I heard you can dry out the head bone with that ear thing and make a rattle.  Reb maybe you could show us how to do that at the Sheepy Contest.

You could set up a little booth and we will all walk by and look at you.   lolol

Bring the neighbor lady.  We will talk to you as she skins the sheepsheads heads.

[reinhard1]

Reb, it was a slooooooooow day but a good day.  I love every chance I get to go to be in the outdoors.  I did get one rainbow.  The ice was very slippery.  The day ended with me putting the rainbow in a plastic bag I had which had a slit in the bottom.  This was the bag the crappie minnows came in.  Was in my portable,  put the rainbow in the bag head first, and it went through the bottom of the bag and right into the hole and never stopped.  So empty handed I was.  I know it will be consumed by a big pike or by something else but how that bag broke is a mystery.  Sure held the minnows well.  Probably be my last day on the ice this year with more warm weather coming up.  good luck.

 

No snow on the ice and about 13 inches of ice.  Not much for this time of the year.

 

 

Don't think anyone will be foolish enough to go on there anymore but you never know.

 

 

This is the boat landing at Grindstone today.  the creek is bringing in water and there is a good flow of current.

[LindellProStaf]

Oh man that is too bad RH.  I used to fish on Square Lake north of Stillwater.  Tiny lake but they stocked it with Rainbow trout and Atlantic Salmon.  Beautiful fish.  Loved to lay down and watch them in the water.  Caught a few and had a few wiggle right back down the hole.  Really neat fish.  Would love to hit Grindstone someday.  Have heard about it for years.

[lovebigbluegills]

Definitely a bummer RH- too bad you couldn't get that one to go home with you, especially since it was likely your last ice outing this season.

[delcecchi]

I used to go to church camp on Grindstone.  Is it still there?   I loved swimming in that lake....

Pushing 60 years ago.  

[reinhard1]

Yes Del, it's still there and still used on a regular basis.  Busy all summer long.  I've fished the lake since the early 70's and there have always been a lot of kids there.  good luck.

[delcecchi]

5 hours ago, reinhard1 said:

Yes Del, it's still there and still used on a regular basis.  Busy all summer long.  I've fished the lake since the early 70's and there have always been a lot of kids there.  good luck.

That's cool.

[RebelSS]

A fish is a fish, RH!  Nice pics...kinda the "it's all over" ones....