While I didn't catch this at a pond, this was my FIRST ever HSB, and has definitely become one of my favorite fish since then, and inspired me to want to add some to my pond. This was caught in April at Badin Lake, NC, and weighed 13 pounds. I didn't realize how big it was until I just looked at the NC state records, and saw that the record is 17lbs 7oz. On this same weekend, I also caught the Blue Catfish that's in my profile picture that weighed 36 pounds. Caught both on a Carolina rig using cut bluegill as bait.

I bet that was a fun one to catch!

Man, you have no idea. Just started ripping line, drag peeling... It probably took line for a good 30 seconds before I could control it. Just an amazing fish.

That's a big HSB! They are my favorite too catch.

Nice catch

Very nice catch.

A smidge bigger than the ones I am raising in my forage pond. My "lunker" yesterday that I caught and transferred to my main pond was about 7.5" long with most now running between 6" and 7". No weights other than to say they were considerably less than 13#.

I hope mine don't get as big as the one he caught. That is a scary big fish to me! I'm a pan fish fisherman. Not sure I even have a rod and line sized to catch that size fish.

Nice catch. I know that was a hoot.

Big hybrids are about my favorite fish to catch, and are very good when released to the grease.

Congrats on a great catch! I've learned to love HSB, they fight much harder than largemouth bass.

Augie, do you have a favorite recipe for the stripers?

I love eating HSB. I like them in Asian-style braised fish recipes the most but I have eaten them breaded and fried too.

This may be a bit "off" but that looks like a HSB that successfully reproduced with a pure striper because it has more striper characteristics than what I'm used to seeing from HSB.

I thought the same thing. I’m not sure if pure stripers were ever put in these waters. I know they were in Lake Norman, but they had issues keeping them alive so they switched to HSB stockings.

Sometimes there's a few that take after the traits of either parent stock. In either case it's a very nice fish!

No special recipe.

Most often I just filet em out, making sure to remove the red meat, then dunk em in egg wash, roll em in Andy's Red, and toss em into the grease.

Sometimes I'll sprinkle em with cajun seasoning and cook in the smoker.

They're also really good blackened in the skillet, then crumbled up and used to make fish tacos.

I haven't tried Bocomo's recommendation, but I bet that would be killer too.

I do try to always use white bass and hybrids fresh. Freezing them has a tendency to make em get mushy when cooked.

For science, I left a piece of red meat from a HSB to try, and it wasn't that bad. Not compared to the red meat on a catfish, which is borderline intolerable. I won't make that mistake again.

Late last summer I filleted several HSB in the 2-3 pound range and did not remove any of the red meat. It was marbled into the white meat such that it would not have been easily removed. It tasted very good for the first few months as I took a pound out of the freezer at a time. The last bag that I took out had been in the freezer for several months, maybe 6, and it had the occasional fishy taste to it. I am thinking that it does not age too well in the freezer. It was not bad by any means, just that the earlier batches did not have any pond taste at all.

Yeah, I've never had good luck with freezing fish. I only keep what I plan on eating that day. My last experience with it was that it turned to mush. From what I've read on the internet, you want to freeze it rapidly. People that I've seen do it will stack it loosely in their freezer with air all around the bag, to get it frozen as quick as possible. I've also seen people freeze it in water, but I've never tried it.

I agree with the marbled red meat in the HSB, it didn't add a fishy taste to it in my opinion. I wouldn't want to eat a whole fillet of only red meat, but a little bit is ok.

That is normal for fish to be fishy after 6 months especially saltwater fish . If you remove the bloodline and freeze covered with ice water it helps a lot

I have 50 plus years experience with saltwater fish and they are much better without bloodline

Wife freezes fish all the time and have no problem with storage in the freezer but she does do some special preperation.

First she soaks the fillets with a little bit of milk in the bag over night. Then she spreads the fillets out on cookie sheets and places them in the open in the freezer. Once the fillets are frozen, usually a day later, she will vacuum seal them in freezer bags. Done that way never had any come out bad up to a year later.

There sure are differences in canning fish. Normally cooked fish we like CC about as well as BG. Have not eaten that much bass yet but looks like next year we will need to start harvesting some. In the last year wife has been pressure canning the skirts off of the BG fillets (actually most of them are BG/GSF hybrids). She keeps what I would call the tenderloin fillet strip for regular cooking or freezing and the skirt that has the pin bones she freezes till she has enough to run a batch in the pressure canner. The pressure canned BG is great and we mix it with sardines usually when we eat it but eaten alone is about like very mild tuna when made into BG salad like tuna salad. But she tried canning some CC and it turned out mush. Glad she just tried a little bit of the CC because it was horrible. We did not even eat the rest of the jar. Was really surprised how much differently the two held up to canning.

So far to date we have harvested and filleted just over 400 BG (mostly hybrids) and 75 CC. I'm guessing around 250# of BG removed and 90# of CC removed from the 3 acre main pond and my 1 acre old refurbished pond combined.