Rough Fish For Dinner

[The Grebe]

Does anyone out there eat rough fish? I have tried Suckers, smoked and fried and I think they are nasty and bony both ways. I ate some smaller smoked carp years back and they were really good. I don't think they are classified as rough fish, but I've eaten Bullheads and I don't really care for them..Eelpout are okay, but alot of work, from start to finished product. This past week-end, we got some Sheep head out of Pokagama and Filleted (I think that is how you spell it?) them up...gonna give em a shot! Anyone else out there with any recipes, or experience eating rough fish?

[jlm]

I don't eat a lot of rough fish but I can tell you that bullheads and eelpout are some of the best eating around! You deep fry the bullheads and boil the back straps in the eelpout (stay away from the stomach meat) and you will have some very good eats! Good luck!

[Roughfisher]

Sheephead (Freshwater Drum) are excellent - they are about the same as their saltwater cousin the Red Drum or Redfish, which is a delicacy. Just take the drum and fillet them boneless like a giant crappie. Keep the nice 2-4 pounders; the little ones have very little meat. I like to bake the sheephead in lemon and butter, I just cut the boneless, white meat fillets into 2 inch chunks and then bake them with a little dill. But you can bread them and fry them and they are just like crappies. All the various suckers are absolutely delicious, but are so darn bony you can't eat them at all unless you grind the fillets in a meat grinder. Then, they are awesome. Mix onion and green pepper into the meat, grind them three times in a fine grinding blade, and make patties. Better than walleye; sweeter meat with extra calcium for the youngun's. You can also score the sucker fillets and fry them which destroys the bones. I've eaten a lot of carp and I don't care for it. Apparently some people know how to prepare them since they are the most eaten fish in the world, but as far as I can tell they taste terrible. There must be some trick to it. If I was going to prepare some I would hot-smoke for six hours a bunch of small chunks with the mud-vein removed and no dark meat. The dark meat turns to mush when cooked and tastes like ... something bad.

Hope that helped,

Roughfisher

[Roughfisher]

Oh, I should add - the suckers I eat are Golden Redhorse, Silver Redhorse, and Shorthead Redhorse. The white sucker I have not eaten much since I was a little boy, when I used to shoot them with a pistol and smoke them. They are not as good as the redhorses. But be sure you are taking the right kind of redhorse.

[Lost]

There's a book at the library called Fishing for Buffalo that talks about the history and tactics of catching all kinds of rough fish and included recipe's for people to try.

[Aquaman01]

The trick to preparing goldeye sucker is the bourbon.

1 - 2 to 4 lb. goldeye sucker; filleted
1 - 750 millileter bottle of bourbon
2 - cups corn meal
2 - cups instant pancake mix
1 - tsp salt
2 - tbsp corn or peanut oil

A. Pour 2 oz. of bourbon into glass, with or without ice. Drink.

B. Cut fillets into 1" chunks

C. Repeat step A

D. Place 1" sucker steaks into 1 gallon sized ziploc bag, choose cat-rod from the ancient gallery and walk-on-down-the-bank.

E. Repete stepp ay

f/ wildlee hurl cutbate in2 the ayr -n- fiszh fer cats until thuh law comes and runns ya outta the parrk.

G. Wake up the next day and use remaining ingredients (not the bourbon, though) to make breakfast.

Rob