Fished, cleaned, and cooked catfish from the pond yesterday....MY GOODNESS what a blessing it was! I have never EVER tasted such mild fish.
The funny thing is that everything I read on the internet about mudcats (flathead catfish) warned about the flavor of mudcats being subpar to channel or blue catfish.
Seriously, if channels and blues are that much better than my mudcats, they must taste like chocolate dipped in honey.
Let me back up a bit.....
As I had posted previously, I need to figure out what fish stay and what fish go in the pond. We wanted to try the mudcats in our pond to see if they were edible or truly not. We still plan to put channel cats in instead--they are much less destructive--but we were not sure if we would be eating the mudcats or the dog would.
After a bit of feet dragging on my part, I finally fished for cats to eat. Mostly we just catch and release.
All excited about my newfound determination to catch and eat, I started fishing. And...nada. Not a nibble. Now, mind you, these catfish are normally always begging for food as soon as you step foot on the dock. In fact, one time Sooper was running across the grass and his footfall was so heavy that the fish came to the surface for food.
This time, however, no matter how many times I stomped on the deck, there were no fish. I walked around the pond trying to catch bass or cats and nothing at all bit. I decided that perhaps live bait might work where lures weren't and remembered that Precious had mentioned crickets at the upper pond. I began my soggy trek through the muck with a net and a cricket basket back to the upper pond. It was incredibly humid and there was a haze of hot, wet air between me and the treeline. The sun was high and bright, the clouds were billowy and intensely white. It was gorgeous, but was the type of weather that somehow seemed to sap your strength with each step.
I walked around the pond once....twice....staring at the ground. I am sure our neighbors must have wondered what I was looking for. Finally, on the second go round, I caught a grasshopper in my net. Then a couple more crickets. Not many, but enough to even see if live bait would entice my recalcitrant catfish.
I had planned on cooking the catfish for dinner, but I was so late that the plan changed to catfish for supper. After a quick dinner (with a chocolate covered coconut ice cream bar...you know...for extra stamina ;) ), I headed back to the dock. At first nothing except a thieving bream. I did not want to catch the bream, I wanted to keep them and fish out some of the mud cats and bass. One bream in particular was determined, and I had to reel in faster than he could swim, as he chased my bait til it left the water.
Eventually though, my bobber (remind me to tell you about my love of bobber fishing :)) went way, WAY under water and I knew this was no bream--not even my big guy who lives under the doc. The fight was on with a decent sized catfish. At one point I thought he was going to snap my rod in two, the tip was so bent over. The mudcats that I caught all tried to make their way back under the dock I was standing on, making line breakage a definite possibility.
In the end, though, I ended up with 5 catfish (two were huge for our pond!). I sent Sooper out to catch bass, as he has quite the touch, and he came back with a decent enough bass for us all to try.
(I will not go into the cleaning of the fish right now, though I probably will do a post on it later. Let's just fast forward this story to the good part....)
With eagerness and not a little trepidation, I began to cook the meal. The only thing I KNEW would be edible were the oven roasted potatoes (much less spicy this time...which is good because we are out of homemade ice cream ;) ). I tried to look up gluten free hushpuppies, but the ingredients were much more involved than I was interested in, so I took a shot with deep frying my cornbread recipe instead. The first two hushpuppies came out perfectly, but the oil got hot, and the rest came out fairly dark. However, they were delicious (need more onion, but truly not a bad freshman effort).
Then it came time to cook the catfish. Remember, pretty much everything I had read exhorted the subpar flavor of mudcats.
First of all, there was NO fish smell at all. None. Period. The only scent the raw catfish had was....spring fed pond--almost scentless with the tiniest hint of mineral water. Very, very pleasant. I simply seasoned cornmeal with pepper, salt, and a light hand of cajun seasoning. They fried up beautifully (I had the oil adjusted this time). One bite was all it took to have me convinced that the dog was going to be eating Iams and not homemade catfish dogfood.
I am pretty easy going when it comes to eating fish. I am not very picky. However, Precious, as normally stalwart about foods as she is, does not enjoy fish much at all. The catfish, though, got a "Yes, I could eat this again" vote :). The internet, my friend, is not to be trusted :).
To compare, we also each got a bite of the bass. I did not mind the taste at all, but the scent of the fish cooking and the taste of the fillets was definitely more "fish". It was not terribly strong--my kitchen does not smell of fish today--but the difference in flavor between the mudcats and the bass was "cornmeal battered fillets of spring water happiness" vs "cornmeal fried fresh fish".
So the dog might get the bass ;)
I walked around the pond once....twice....staring at the ground. I am sure our neighbors must have wondered what I was looking for. Finally, on the second go round, I caught a grasshopper in my net. Then a couple more crickets. Not many, but enough to even see if live bait would entice my recalcitrant catfish.
I had planned on cooking the catfish for dinner, but I was so late that the plan changed to catfish for supper. After a quick dinner (with a chocolate covered coconut ice cream bar...you know...for extra stamina ;) ), I headed back to the dock. At first nothing except a thieving bream. I did not want to catch the bream, I wanted to keep them and fish out some of the mud cats and bass. One bream in particular was determined, and I had to reel in faster than he could swim, as he chased my bait til it left the water.
Eventually though, my bobber (remind me to tell you about my love of bobber fishing :)) went way, WAY under water and I knew this was no bream--not even my big guy who lives under the doc. The fight was on with a decent sized catfish. At one point I thought he was going to snap my rod in two, the tip was so bent over. The mudcats that I caught all tried to make their way back under the dock I was standing on, making line breakage a definite possibility.
In the end, though, I ended up with 5 catfish (two were huge for our pond!). I sent Sooper out to catch bass, as he has quite the touch, and he came back with a decent enough bass for us all to try.
(I will not go into the cleaning of the fish right now, though I probably will do a post on it later. Let's just fast forward this story to the good part....)
With eagerness and not a little trepidation, I began to cook the meal. The only thing I KNEW would be edible were the oven roasted potatoes (much less spicy this time...which is good because we are out of homemade ice cream ;) ). I tried to look up gluten free hushpuppies, but the ingredients were much more involved than I was interested in, so I took a shot with deep frying my cornbread recipe instead. The first two hushpuppies came out perfectly, but the oil got hot, and the rest came out fairly dark. However, they were delicious (need more onion, but truly not a bad freshman effort).
Then it came time to cook the catfish. Remember, pretty much everything I had read exhorted the subpar flavor of mudcats.
First of all, there was NO fish smell at all. None. Period. The only scent the raw catfish had was....spring fed pond--almost scentless with the tiniest hint of mineral water. Very, very pleasant. I simply seasoned cornmeal with pepper, salt, and a light hand of cajun seasoning. They fried up beautifully (I had the oil adjusted this time). One bite was all it took to have me convinced that the dog was going to be eating Iams and not homemade catfish dogfood.
I am pretty easy going when it comes to eating fish. I am not very picky. However, Precious, as normally stalwart about foods as she is, does not enjoy fish much at all. The catfish, though, got a "Yes, I could eat this again" vote :). The internet, my friend, is not to be trusted :).
To compare, we also each got a bite of the bass. I did not mind the taste at all, but the scent of the fish cooking and the taste of the fillets was definitely more "fish". It was not terribly strong--my kitchen does not smell of fish today--but the difference in flavor between the mudcats and the bass was "cornmeal battered fillets of spring water happiness" vs "cornmeal fried fresh fish".
So the dog might get the bass ;)
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