My pond is 2 years old, the catfish were put in about 4 months after digging it. The problem is they don't taste good at all, the well water going in has that rotten egg smell to it. Also had a bad algae problem where big patches of algae floated up from the bottom. I feed them every evening with floating fish food and left over bread. The kids don't like the taste of the catfish, What is causing the bad taste???
Probably the sulpher content in your well water.
If you purge (no feeding) them in clean, clear, odorless water for about two days, the taste may disappear.
You might also try soaking the fillets for a couple of days in clean water in the refrigerator. This has made a big improvement in the taste of our catfish. It is sure worth a try.
Take a look at this.
http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=3 and see SRAC 0192 Managing Off-Flavor Problems in Pond Raised Catfish
The off-flavor is probably directly related to the algae. If you can aerate the pond and keep algae at bay and feed a good catfish food, the flavor will change. The taste is often associated with algae and inconsistent feeding of a good quality fish food.
Outside of bad tastes from algae, hang the live catfish by their head and cut off their tails to let them bleed out. Remove all dark colored flesh from the fillets, deep skinning (removing about 1/8"+ of the flesh near the skin), and zippering (split the fillet along the lateral line and remove 1/4" of the flesh each side) will greatly reduce off flavors.
You might also try soaking the fillets for a couple of days in clean water in the refrigerator. This has made a big improvement in the taste of our catfish. It is sure worth a try.
I find soaking the fillets in salt water while I soak myself in beer greatly improves the flavor.
Thanks guys for all the info, will try some of them. Also a friend of mine said to soak them in milk for acouple hours may help too.
I was gonna suggest the milk,and the beer never fails to work either.
There's always the plank method...
(nail to plank, char fish, scrape off fish, eat plank)
My first Lt. on the fire dept was an avid fisherman. Very particular about which types of fish were "worth" eating. His solution for all the rest was the plank.
Jeff-
Hmmmm,filet of misquite,sounds kinda bbqy.