How does feeding BG commercial feed affect the taste/texture? My only comparison is farmed vs. wild caught catfish. In my opinion wild caught is superior. Farmed is generally softer in texture and more bland. Don't how much that has to do with the processing.

Based on my experience with Salmon and Catfish both, I have to go with a flavor and texture advantage to wild every time. I've never eaten BG that were 100% feed raised so I can't speak specifically to that.

Blind taste tests with folks being told two samples of the same food are organic and conventional finds folks like the taste of food that sounds organic. Just saying...

They taste fine to me.

There is a reason for commercially raised fish tasting bland. A restaurant owner/chef explained it here a couple of years ago. People like the idea of eating fish over red meat but not the taste. So, the commercial farms feed a pellet that will give the flesh a bland taste that allows the use of sauces to give it flavor. Catfish, trout and tilapia covered by tartar sauce are good examples.

That explanation sounds pretty fishy to me:)

I'm kind of like Dave's resturant goers. I like bland fish and add the flavor I prefer.

I don't really care much for fishy tasting fish and I rarely eat seafood (only if there is nothing else to eat).

I know, I know. But I like what I like. What can I say?

So I like the pellet fed CC and BG.

You are not alone:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/late...whatever#page-2

I live close to a small river here in NW AR and have occasionally caught CC there in mid spring. They taste more "fishy" than the pond raised, and the meat is redder and not as flaky. I imagine the 18" ones in the river are maybe three or four years old, and mine the same size are about 16 months. Would that be about right?

bg look very oily while fileting them if they are raised on feed. my experience with this is based on aquamax feed.i haven't used optimal long enough solo to see if it is the same. i would bet the cheaper feed doesn't make them oily. as far as taste, i haven't had a wild caught bream since i was a kid so i don't know. i would think the feed would surely make a difference in taste though.

Like anything else, a lot depends on how much of a particular item they consume. Fed to satiation might taste different from supplemental.

Couldn't a lot depend on the quality of water they're coming out of? I've not eaten a wild-caught BG for years but I (and family and friends) have eaten a ton of BG out of my pond over the past several months and they are outstanding! And I wouldn't put my water quality at optimal, certainly not clear!

For me, I've even put them above the Crappie that I've been catching out of my pond for the past 3 years (culled over 3,000).

We eat a lot of fish

PS - no side by side taste test with wild-caught but certainly no complaints with the BG out of my pond, and I always have some breaded and ready for the fryer (but I also bake plenty, not breaded)

I think it makes a big difference in CC. I prefer pellet fed. But I can't tell a difference in BG.

Everything looks so good in that picture! How does the HSB taste say compared to the LMB? Looks like you do the HSB in 'chunks' rather than long filets?

Lovinlivin, It does make a difference in the water!! I have lived here in East Texas right between Lake Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend Lake for almost 40 years. I have had a retail fish dealers license for several of those years and bought and sold catfish from fishermen on both lakes. It never failed that when I sold fish from Toledo Bend I had complaints of the fish being way too muddy tasting. I NEVER had that complaint from fish from Lake Sam Rayburn and personally I agree with my customers. I won't eat the catfish from Toledo Bend. On another note I started buying live farmraised catfish for awhile and actually had a customer brought me a plate of cooked catfish they prepared and wanted me to taste it!! They complained it did not have any flavor and did not taste like catfish and wanted their money back!!! Wow!!

Canyoncreek, to me the HSB is better tasting, you just need to be sure and cut out the red. And the reason I cut them in chunks is for the sake of fish fry's. If I bake them I'll leave the filet whole. With the pre-breading, I'll bread them and freeze them for about 30-60 minutes before packaging them. Keeps them from sticking together. If I decide tonight I want fish, I grab about 6 filets and let 'em hit the grease! Almost too convenient .

Flame, interesting story, thanks for sharing! I've had the same experience with catfish, depending on the waters they came from. Here in Nebraska our lakes are nearly all mud pits. The smaller cat's (2 lb or less) are always much better IMO than the larger ones.

I personally prefer the taste and texture of WE, BG, BCP, White Bass and HSB. And I've never kept LMB, until now as I'm clearing out the pond .

I've also discovered a lot of people tend to overcook their catch which has an impact as well.

The catfish caught from the deep, clear, rocky end of our COE lake (Beaver Reservoir) are always better tasting than ones caught from the river end. I think they mostly eat mud burrowing crawfish, insects, and dead shad in the river end and cleaner crawfish and lots of TF Shad and sunfish in the deep, clear, rocky end. In the deep end, sometimes the larger catfish hang underneath schools of striped bass or white bass that are following enormous shad schools and clean up on crippled shad.

You can also soak the HSB fillets in milk for a few hours after cutting out the red if you want a milder taste. We'd do that with Stripers that we'd catch out of Cecil Hardin Lake.

Keith,
Those fillets look great. I'd like to do that with my YP fillets.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to catch a HSB yet, so I'll have to wait until I do, to sample one.
Also, how do you get such nice fillets from BG? I think I need to let mine get a bit bigger.
The only YP I've ever eaten have all come from my pond, and have all been feed raised. They are fantastic tasting.
Jeff

Setter, Keith has LOTS of practice filleting fish. Lol.

Setter, thanks and CMM's right with having lots of practice. And I haven't tried YP but anxious to do so as I've heard they're outstanding.

I won't go into how many BG I've filleted so far but the number's pretty high, so I would think I would have to start getting better at it. With bringing in 30-50 at a time to clean,,,,



I can whip through them pretty quick with an electric fillet knife and not miss too much.



And end up with these to soak in salt water before packaging.


I'm pretty stocked up

I tried using my Elec fillet knife. I'm embarrassed to show the results I got!
My gosh, you do a heck of a job! If you ever make a YouTube video on your technique, please share the link here..

the purpose of soaking in salt water? I've heard of putting on ice quickly to 'firm up meat'. Is that what salt water does too? Does it have to be icy cold salt water?

I don't have the finesse skills to filet well enough to avoid wasting a lot of the meat, so I clean them the old fashioned way, then chunk them up as necessary, and we pick out the bones as we eat them. Sometimes my wife fillets when she feels like it. She does a good job, but would rather not do it.

I don't know of any benefit of the salt water soaking except it keeps my fillets from curling, and that may just be due to my well water being so hard. They'll get a bit slimy but they're very pliable compared to the stiffness of being in my hard water. And after the soak I blot them dry on paper towels before breading or vacuum sealing. As far as icy cold, I just rinse them off good in cold tap water then put them in the bowl of salt water and frig. For no specific time, just until I have the time to bread or seal them.

It's worked so I keep doing it,,,, until a better/smarter idea comes along .

If you are soaking them in salt water you are basically brining them.

Keith, "I'm pretty stocked up" good for you and friends and family. I'm glad your harvesting so much of diligent effort. Keep at it till it gets too cold which will be soon. I've stated before you need to beat the bushes and find some ice fishermen. Better strangers help you catch them out vs leaving them for the crumlord. also maybe round up some appropriate sized traps for early next spring.
Keep on rockin!!

Keith, "I'm pretty stocked up" good for you and friends and family. I'm glad your harvesting so much of diligent effort. Keep at it till it gets too cold which will be soon. I've stated before you need to beat the bushes and find some ice fishermen. Better strangers help you catch them out vs leaving them for the crumlord. also maybe round up some appropriate sized traps for early next spring.
Keep on rockin!!

Bob-O, I wish I could. Since pulling the aeration system in early September they haven't been feeding and it hasn't been fishable due to the increasing algae problem. Maybe it will clear up enough to cull some more but I'll just have to see. I'm also hoping to be out of here before the dead of winter, even if it's somewhere temporary until I find the right place.

And to keep with Oldgeekinnc's original question on this thread, I wonder how the taste would be affected with the fish coming out of this BOW? Heck, I'm not even sure how they can swim in it!

Wow, that's amazing what's happened to the water. I haven't added aeration yet, but have t needed to. My water is very clear right now. With just a small amount of FA on the banks.
By the way, if you would not mind, could you give me a quick description on your filleting technique for BG? My HBG are getting big enough to eat. I caught three or four yesterday that were pretty good sized. I was keeping the YP, so I threw the HBG back. Like I mentioned earlier, my attempts to clean the HBG were so weak, I just can't bring myself to try and clean any more. Too wasteful.
Hope you don't mind. thanks,
Jeff

Jeff, here's how my grandmother cleaned (and cooked) bluegills.

Scale. Remove head and guts. Coat with seasoned flour (black pepper to taste was mixed with the flour and a bit of salt). Fry in Crisco. Peel off skin and pull out fins, peel meat away from skeleton. Eat.

She (and I) can have a fish skeleton that looks like one in the kids cartoons.

If I filleted them she would say that I was wasting too much meat.

The best tasting fish is killed by hypothermia on ice. The blood leaves the meat to the organs to preserve the fishes life. When cleaned up after this happens there is next to no blood in the meat. Leaving it better tasting and flaky.

Cheers Don.

Esshup I ordered pescado frito in Rio Lagartos, Mexico once and it was prepared just like that (except they likely used lard instead of Crisco). Only the head was left on. Fish was big enough it hung off the plate.

Was very good, but I did not eat the eyes.

Dono once we read about that here on PBF and tried it, that is about the only way we clean fish now. I cleaned two CC that way last night. Not only do they clean easier that way, but on larger CC I do not have to worry about getting them killed so they do not squirm around.

We fortunately have an ice machine in our nearby office, so that makes it easy to source the ice. Having the ice on hand could be a sticking point for some to use the method. We have an old cooler dedicated for fish cleaning, fill it half full of ice with a tablespoon of salt (to further lower the temperature) and add enough water so the fish will float. Dump em in and let them sit for at least an hour and more like a couple hours if the fish are big (3# CC) or numerous. I usually throw a batch in the cooler that I have caught previously and are in the holding pen and let them cool while I am fishing. Then clean them at the fish cleaning station on our dock. That is the best way my wife and I have found.

I'm still not very good at it and slow, but she does pretty good. I'm learning though.

That's how we did it when I was a kid also. My mother still likes them prepared that way. I filet what we eat here, but fair warning, I prefer to filet our bluegills while still alive. I will not freeze fish, and nothing fresher than consuming them right after catching. Matter of fact, if a fish dies before I filet it, it gets tossed.

snrub, I also ate fried fish in Rio Lagartos way back in '88. It was then called Pescado entero grande (whole big fish), and yes, for a fact, it was deep fried whole in manteca, which made it taste So Good! Every time we ordered it we got a fish hanging over both ends of a long oval plate. We sought out this dish throughout the Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala. Invariably the fish served was mullet, locally referred to as Liseta.
We took a panga tour down the Rio, mainly for bird watching. Nearly every bird our guide pointed out was described as muy sabroso! He laughingly insisted the roseate spoonbills were included in that sabroso bunch. Spoonbills probably taste worse than mergansers that have been gorging on carp.

We also took a boat trip down the river to watch the Flamingos. Funny thing was, it was quite a long boat ride (which was fine) but about a quarter mile before the birds we passed under a small bridge that we had driven across! LOL We only saw a few flamingos there, but thousands at Celestun.

We spent about 7 or 8 years traveling the Yucatan. Usually would spend a week to two diving and on the beach and a week or two driving around. Cheapest hotel we ever stayed in was at Peto and it was $5 a night and worth every penny but not one more! Almost decided to sleep in the car in the enclosed parking lot instead of the bed.

Aukumal was our favorite beach location for years then later Puerto Morelos. In later years we would make one trip in the summer and one in the winter.

We were into Mayan ruins back then.

7 or 8 visits! Nice. We had three weeks to see Tikal, Tulum, Tizimin, several other ruins, stay on Cay Caulker in Belize, some other spots.

We snorkeled ( We weren't certified at the time) on Cozumel, the reef off Belize, and in a cenote recommended for its fishes. Guess what the fish were-black bullheads and green sunfish. Yikes. Neither possibly native to the Yucatan. "They're everywhere; they're everywhere!"

Have a cousin that is a "big time" chef. He told me to mix whatever breading I use with 50% corn starch. It will make a beautiful crispy breading and helps the breading not absorb the oil. He learned it from a Asian chef.

I waste a lot of meat trying to fillet BG or RES. My wife is better at hand finesse tasks and does somewhat better. I really prefer the "remove head, entrails, and scale" for BG or RES under 8 inches.

That is the way I want fish to taste. Bland. I want to add the flavor of my desire in the coating.

Otherwise it is chicken, pork or beef for me.

I never was all that fond of CC till we started raising our own (on commercial feed). White, flaky, mild flesh. Just the way I like it. If not for the smaller flakes in the BG, I don't see that much taste difference between our CC and BG and cut up with the same size chunks and coating would be hard pressed to tell the difference without looking at flake size.