Halibut

Crappie is good, no doubt about that. But I'll take yellow cat over crappie any day. Striper/hybrid is up there too.

Friends church bought a big batch of pollock for fish fry.....then hurricane hit and they sold it off since the freezer/ electricity went down. Bought two big boxes. Like 50 filets each

It fried up just fine. Light, big flakes. Kids liked it.

docb said:

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Walleye. Unfortunately I've never seen it on a menu down here.

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Walleye is my favorite too. Apparently you can find them in some north Texas lakes...

https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/walleye/

FIDO*98* said:

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halfastros81 said:

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This will surprise a few folks but sheepshead are really good fixed almost any way you just have to figure out how to clean them. There's are multiple youtubes on how to clean them.

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Sheepshead are great. We usually Bowfish them in conjunction with a Flounder trip. When we have a mess of them we usually just run them up to Billings to clean. Short of taking the easy way out, an electric knife is a must.

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Sheepshead are another that I'd rather cook in a cast iron with butter. Damn tasty fish. I pretty much feel the same about all salt-water fish - grill or cast iron or broil unless I have a surplus. Then usually only the trout gets fried.


For those suggesting that Alaskan fish, do you cook it with a specific purpose or just for the Halibut?

/Dad Joke

Any fish that's good grilled is even better fried

Where does gar rank in the list of good eatin' fish?

Never had it but I saw a video of spit roasting a skinned gar...it looked good, but I've never eaten one before...

Munch....no just stay away

Got a sheepie in the cooler now...hit like a train on a 1/8 oz crappie jig head!

A certain Texags poster had the top sheepshead on the board of the STAR tourney a few years back going into the week before Labor Day. This poster's fish got bested by 2 ounces the last weekend. This disappointed (and boat-less) poster had no idea at the time of the catch that it would even make the board, so that big sheep was on ice probably 3 hours before it weighed in, likely costing it a few ounces.

Fresh Fish is the best for frying.

FIDO*98* said:

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My fried fish is pretty legendary with my circle of friends. It's complicated, but, worth it. I make a wet batter followed by a dry dredge for my go-to.

Mix about a 1.25c of self-rising flour and a Shiner Bock to thin pancake batter consistency. Season with salt.

I chunk the fish or leave filets whole and marinate in the batter for an hour or two.

While that's going I make my dry dredge.

Take a sleeve of Saltines, a sleeve of Town House (or Ritz), zest of a lemon and some fresh parsley to a food processor. Pulse until it's a fine cracker meal.

Add a box of panko and 1/2c corn flour. Season the dry dredge with a little Slap ya Momma and old bay

Take the fish from the wet batter and drop in the dry. Dredge pressing firmly to coat.

Fry till GBAD

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ttt

I'm going to be suicidal and try this air fried. Our oven has this feature.

If you've ever eaten a walleye you'll never let another one go

Crappie.

Striper with the red pulled out has the best consistency imo. Clear water black bass is great, too, but catfish is just hard to beat.

Hand sized bluegill filleted and deep fried in hot peanut oil is damn good.

Next time you want to bake fish with a breading try doing it En Persillade instead. Mine's sitting on a Romesco sauce

The lowly sheepshead takes a whole new place in the food chain with this recipe….

Walleye
Crappie
Catfish. Make sure the silver internal organ lining is removed.
Gaspergoo (Freshwater Drum)
White Bass

Crappie. I like it far better than walleye or anything else. It's great fried, and makes great fish tacos. Holds flavor really well.

Gunny456 said:

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Gaspergoo (Freshwater Drum)

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Highly underrated.

Gunny456 said:

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Walleye
Crappie
Catfish. Make sure the silver internal organ lining is removed.
Gaspergoo (Freshwater Drum)
White Bass

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Someone who eats it whole/in chunks like God intended. Crunch that tail!

Gafftopsail

My mom would only eat two kinds of fish. Gaspergoo and Crappie……but she was born on a ranch on the Guadalupe River…. Go figure.

Bonnethead shark is an excellent fried fish.

Fried Pah-tah-sah tails cannot be beat!

Golden Croaker.

Some of the ones yall mention are too good to fry. Don't mess up good sheepshead in the fryer!!! Just rub a lil olive oil or barely sprinkle some good seasoning and bake.

Perch should be added

FIDO*98* said:

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My fried fish is pretty legendary with my circle of friends. It's complicated, but, worth it. I make a wet batter followed by a dry dredge for my go-to.

Mix about a 1.25c of self-rising flour and a Shiner Bock to thin pancake batter consistency. Season with salt.

I chunk the fish or leave filets whole and marinate in the batter for an hour or two.

While that's going I make my dry dredge.

Take a sleeve of Saltines, a sleeve of Town House (or Ritz), zest of a lemon and some fresh parsley to a food processor. Pulse until it's a fine cracker meal.

Add a box of panko and 1/2c corn flour. Season the dry dredge with a little Slap ya Momma and old bay

Take the fish from the wet batter and drop in the dry. Dredge pressing firmly to coat.

Fry till GBAD

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I have this printed out in my recipe book.

That was the sheepshead last night

I second the golden croaker comment

concac said:

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Flounder.

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I'm not too big into frying flounder. I think flounder is a bit too soft (mushy?) to fry it. I eat a lot of flounder and my favorite way to cook it is to put it on my WSM and cook it at about 300 degrees with heavy smoke.

Which WSM you using? .270 or .300? How many rounds does it take to get the barrel hot enough to cook?

Second this ^

I'd say it depends on how they were fed. Farm /pellet raised … agree. Natural food raised they are pretty good. We added tilapia to a pond where we were trying to raise bigger bass … the tilapia breed like crazy (and are mouth breeders) and produce tons of fry. When the water cools in the fall they slow way down and the bass have an easy food source. It supercharged bass growth.

When I say tilapia are mouth breeders what I mean is they keep their fertilized eggs in their mouth until they hatch to protect the eggs from predators .

We didn't pellet feed the tilapia (or anything else). Tilapia had to eat what was naturally available and they also eat vegetation which is good for veg control . The tilapia we harvested were excellent - white flaky meat. They got big too… some over 3#.

Downside - we lost all the tilapia in the 2021 freeze. They can't live long if the water drops into the 40's. Local buzzards had a field day or two.

Original question in my order of preference … speckled trout and fresh sand trout # 1 and crappie # 2. Bluegills are great too if they are big enough to filet but if not … too many bones. Whiting is also really good fried imo.

I ate walleye when we went fishing in Ontario a few decades back. It was good but the guide didn't use any seasoning in the batter/coating and maybe that's why it didn't register as top notch for me.

Agree with you on sheepshead … grill or broil. Flounder as well. Too good to fry.

Here's a recipe I bet most haven't tried. Grinnell/choupique smoked on a cedar board. Just throw the cleaned fish on the board, smoke it at 275-300F for an hour (or more). When you can stick a fork easily thru the fish take the fish off the board and throw it away, and eat the board.

Halibut and Cod