Smaller Panfish

[Maximum12]

All, there's a couple of lakes around my neck of the woods that boast massive populations of stunted crappies & gills. I haven't taken a panfish in a decade & am wondering if maybe I should do my part to try to thin these stunted herds a little bit.

So my question is how does one clean/prepare smaller panfish without losing what meat is on them?

[fishtrap3]

you could scale, gut , dehead , and bake them in the oven.

[New Yankee]

I'm w/fishtrap3, but would deep fry them, some of the small rib bones 'melt' away. Knew some old folks used to eat them bones and all that way, said it was good for 'ya!

I wonder about pickling them like northerns? Never done it, but gotta be the same theory right?

[RussDaBuss]

I third the scale thing!! A couple times a year i like to Keep the smaller ones and fry them up this was!! YUMMMM!!!

[Mr Special]

I wondered about pickling them would disolved the bones also?

[fisherking01]

I've never had much luck pickling sunnies, they have turned out kinda rubbery textured. Crappies on the other hand are excellent pickled, I'd still take the bones out though.

If you do scale and pan fry the small panfish, you will notice a different flavor, really good in my opinion. I used to scale and fillet panfish for my Grandma, until at 85 years old she told me "you're not doing me any favors by taking the bones out, I prefet them cleaned the old way."

Now all of her sunnies are delivered scaled, no head and gutted. I also take the top fin and bones out, makes for ease of taking the fish apart after cooking.

[CrappieJohn]

Pickled sunfish are great. And yes, the bones dissolve.

[fisherking01]

CrappieTom, do you use a different recipe for the sunfish? Maybe I'll have to try it again, only tried it once, and that was years ago, didn't turn out so I never tried it again.

[Troublehook]

If you were to fry those small ones, how small would be the smallest that u guys would cook? (In inches of course)

[Tofishem]

First, I use an electric fillet knife. 6"-7½" Gills, 9-10" Crappies, and 8-10½" Perch work the best.

Take only the backs. Why mess with the belly meat? Not much there anyhow.

We oven fry'em with an Italian seasoning mix. Kinda like a shake'n bake. Minimal mess and no after smell in the house. This is low in cholesterol, calories and good for heart patients. Really tasty too!

I only keep small ones for the oven and release all the genes and breeders back to keep those nice ones coming.

Bruce

[BLACKJACK]

I'll third the motion on scaling, beheading, and gutting the small panfish, then frying them. They're good, less batter and more pure fish flavor. Once you practice taking the bones out, you can scarf them right down. After frying whole, pull tail and top fin off, then starting at the front, seperate down the backbone (be careful, they're hot!!), pull out the backbone, the rib cages, and a few bones along the top fin spot and Walla!, you have two fillets, with only one side fried.

[merganser]

My dad and I would get a mess of small crappies and sunfish, spend an hour or so filleting them, and make a fish chowder out of the little fillets. Just like new england clam chowder except we used the fish. It was a little work, but made for some tastey chowder.

[rookie44]

anyone try smoking them?