Unknown to me anyway!

A friend's dad came out last Monday with some crawlers as he enjoys catching BG. He commented he caught 2 BCP casting into the bubbles of the deep diffuser (8-9' deep) so I rigged us both up a Panfish Assassin,



As long as we landed the lure in the middle of the bubbles, not to the side, front or back;



It was Crappie-on!

Last Monday - 35 in an hour and a half


Tuesday - by myself, 32 in an hour


Wednesday it rained so on Thursday - 12 with my son


I was in Iowa all weekend for a pool tournament so getting back at it yesterday (Monday) - by myself, 28


Along in the mix was this nice BG


And the biggest surprise also hanging around the diffuser was this HSB. And on 4 lb test, this guy took me for a great thrill ride!


So I guess as much as I've chastised the over 3300 BCP I've culled since April 2013 and realizing there's an endless supply, the HSB have thrived (caught a 6.5 lb'r last fall), the BG are bigger than I've expected and the LMB have all been over 100% WR, including this one caught tonight. 16.5", 3.02 lb at 127% WR.



I realize this balance will not last forever but I couldn't be happier and man have I gotten good at cleaning BCP! 107 caught in a week is 214 decent fillets! So if they're going to keep hanging around the diffuser, I'll keep stocking up and release to the grease!

Cool! Try smoking some.

That's a great post. Great to hear.

I did some snorkeling on my big pond back when I had largemouth. All around the diffuser bubble were hundreds of bass fingerlings. Do you think you had some kind of forage hanging around the diffuser?

Forage - Zooplankton.

I've had FHMs in my pond for 2 years now with no serious predation. There are days clouds of FHMs look like oil slicks around the aerator plume. When birds swoop down by the plume it appears as though they are jet fighters strafing the water due to FHMs jumping out of the water in fear. One day we took a belly boat out with a long handled minnow net and netted 50 plus with one swoop of the net. It's amazing the attraction of the aerator to FHMs.

So it's a feed-bag bubbler system?

Zooplantkon attracting the smallest and working up from there?

It's about 7-7:30 pm when the bite is nearly non-stop so as long as it's not raining, that's where I'll be!

Then back to the BCP cleaning station .

Maybe an endless supply of BCP isn't such a bad thing



107 in a week = 214 decent fillets

Awesome Keith. I'm hungry!

Hey, I see you vacuum packed them. I always freeze mine in water. Do you have any freezer burn problems?

Keith, you must be a wizard at fileting. What is your technique?

During summer there are hundreds of 2-3" BG that hang around my diffusers. They seem to ride the bubbles to the top and disperse outward when they reach the top. When I approach with a boat they will stop momentarily, then if I remain still they will start up again.

At times, from the bank I will see swarms of them spook in a circular pattern around the bubble column. I assume a LMB is chasing them around the bubble column.

Great looking BCP and a lot of good eating. Your pond is productive!

Keith one thing my wife started doing with fillets is put them on a cookie sheet and stick into the freezer just till they are firm. Then she vacuum seals them like you did.

You may be processing so many you do not have the space to do this. But by pre-freezing them before bagging, they don't clump and freeze all in one big lump so they all have to be thawed at once. She can take out one or many fillets as she needs for the occasion without thawing out meat she doesn't need.

Only have to leave them on the cookie sheet till they firm up good so the moisture will not stick them together. Can even bread them frozen as they come out single.

Thanks snrub and it's pretty crazy what happens around the diffuser bubbles! And to catch that HSB also hanging around the diffuser, on 4 lb test was really a thrill!

BillD, I used to freeze mine in water as well but vacuum sealed is so much more efficient and no, no freezer burn! After fileting I rinse them, then they soak in a saltwater bath for a short time, then on to paper towels to blot dry, then vacuum sealed. And as you can see in the earlier photo, I layer them thinly so they thaw quickly. Very quickly by just setting them in cool water!

Canyoncreek, after fileting a few thousand of these I've gotten pretty good with a Rapala electric filet knife with 6" blades and a small filet knife to de-bone. Even the smaller 4-6" BCP I'll get a decent filet from.

Here's one I was working on to show the eggs, but I leave very little if any meat even with the electric knife.



And yes, every female was fully loaded with eggs!

No bags with eggs in them?? Or did you fry them up right away?

Full of eggs. Crazy spawners

I recall this topic in a previous thread and although it's safe to say 80% of the 107 I just cleaned were loaded females like the one shown, it was one of those, "yeah,,,, no" moments.

I guess I'm still not convinced they're worth cooking up .

But that's not to say I can't be

PS - What was encouraging is that it appears to be another "bust" BCP spawn as I would think they would have dropped them by now.

Save one. Next time you are frying the fillets, treat it the same way. You may be surprised.

Take my Dad for instance. Everything tastes good until he knows what he is eating, then all of a sudden it doesn't taste so good.......

I've learned that the restaurants got it right when re-naming things to sell them to eat.

So, I've cooked a lot of "hamburger" that he's thought was beef "hamburger", etc.

Ha, I feed my X calf fries, mountain oysters. She ate them up till I told her. She stopped rite then. I laughed so hard I had tears running down my face. Course I am divorced from her now,

Tracy

He he he that's funny Tracy
We bought a chamber vacuum sealer this winter and it is fabulous. You can seal a bag of water or anything wet like soup or stew and no problema like the standard sealers, great for fish

I lived in Asia for many years and was amazed by some of the things those folks would eat. Fried giant beetles aren't my favorite! When I mentioned Rock Mountain Oysters they were all amazed we would eat something so disgusting!

There was a truck stop restaurant in Ada Okla where I grew up. Cattle country. They fried up the best darn calf fries I have ever eaten. Really good eaten

Tracy

When we would hit the streams near Mammoth, Ca. for the trout opener, that was a required meal one night. The local grocery store carried them.

A friend had a place there, and we'd go for 4-5 days that overlapped the opener, there was 3-4, up to 6 of us there. We'd always have one guy (especially a new guy) that would say "These are good! What are they?" and then get pretty green or run to the bathroom. At the very least they'd drop them like a hot potato.

23 more tonight in an hour, crazy stuff!



And yes, Scott I will fry up some eggs as you suggested.

Results to follow

Not exactly on my bucket list, but one I can scratch off!

Glad I tried it and not too darned bad!





Yep, ate 'em all

Thanks for the cooking tips, Scott! (otherwise they all would have exploded, like one did )

You got yourself a regular "fish factory" pond there.

You are definitely turning "lemons (unwanted fish in your pond) into lemonade".

Yep, good fish pond. What was the TIP about frying them up?

Tracy

Sorry, Tracy I never responded to your question. Scott's tip was to pierce the egg sack to keep it from exploding in the frying pan