Who's started the major spring fishing? I have!

The catches of late. My boss, Jay, and Me. Not bad for a day of fishing.

 

Great day of fishing if I may say so.. I am fishing tomorrow, I hope its successful. I cant wait, I already have all of my tackle all over the living room..

 

Good gosh...I want a catfish fry after looking at those pics

And yeah. My mom absolutely "loved" it when I was putting new line on my reels and all that fun stuff. Right in the middle of the living room And my brother got the fishing itch the other day. Except he seemed to enjoy trying to learn how to cast one of my baitcasters...as a result I got to untangle a birdsnest from hell and he lost one of my spinnerbaits. Joy. But if he pitches in and buys a small boat with me in the distant future (like a john boat with a small 10hp engine on it or an old bass boat) I'm fine with that

 

Well I never got more fish. But we cooked these guys up tonight (my first time filleting a fish all by myself) and apparently I'm a natural at filleting

I really liked the bass. Tasted great to me. The crappie on the other hand tasted kind of odd. Not bad at all, it was good, just weird to me. The texture was weird and the taste itself was weird. Not exactly a "fish" flavor and texture. It was just weird.

Oh. Well a friend of mine just pulled out an old book of his and it turns out that the crappie had a type of internal parasite. Small red lines inside the fillet (you'd never see them otherwise). We had never even eaten crappie before, so didn't know what it was. We thought it might be a parasite, but we also knew that most (almost all) fish parasites that are internal are safe to eat if they're cooked. So we risked it. But the book said that the parasite is indeed safe when cooked (we deep fried that sucker for 5 minutes), it also takes away from the fish texture and taste. So we're gonna try crappie again some time hahaha.

So anyways, my favorite freshwater fish to eat are now bass and catfish. I really like bluegill, it's just that the meat is way too "light" and "fluffy" to be filling so it feels like I'm eating tasty fish that transforms into air in my mouth. Bass and catfish have substance to them haha

 

I can't wait until I have a chance to really try to fish this year.

I put the dock in up north, and after I was done, I threw a spinner out and caught a nice perch on my first catch. That's a way to start the season

 

No luck today of legal size.. I gave it my best, it was just too noisy with a girlfriend kayaking around me. And she still thinks I took her out there to spend the day kayaking lol..