Crappie Season!

[sc birdman]

Spring is in the air in Upstate SC - temps in the 70s this weekend! The crappie are biting, and I wanted to see if anyone has experience with smoke-cooking smaller panfish. These guys are too small to fillet, so they are scaled, gutted and cooked. Lots of bones but great flavor when fried, so I bet they will be awesome when smoked.

All information gratefully accepted.

Rgds,
Brian

 

[cowgirl]

Dang Brian! I want to go crappie fishing! Bet they are biting here too... I need to go check. lol

I have not smoked them, but bet they would be great!

 

[voldaddy]

We filet Crappie all the time. Never smoked them, but I bet they would be good. Let us know the results if you smoke some.

 

[sc birdman]

Y'all must have bigger crappie than us! Most of ours run in the just-under-1-pound range. Tried filleting a few of those and the flesh was about a millimeter thick, so went back to the tried-and-true "off-with-their-heads" method. Hope to get out tomorrow and bring in a few more, hopefully bigger this time. :-)

 

[rw willy]

Corn flour and deep fried.

 

[bwsmith_2000]

Bird Man,
Look forward to your report tomorrow. I spent a lot of time "growing up" in Covington, Ga. Lakes Oconne, Sinclair and Clarks Hill were my favorites. Love those Crappie!

 

[deewain32]

This was last year. All night with yo-yo's. 32 Crappie & 11 Catfish.

http://s49.photobucket.com/albums/f261/racingfool32/Fish/?action=view&current=crappie.jpg

 

[oleolson]

I'd LOVE to go fishing but there's still 3 feet of ice on the lakes here.

 

[eman]

i know they got ice augers up there ole.
crappie bite under the ice.

 

[oleolson]

I'm well aware of that, I have ice fishing equipment. We've had a lot of snow this winter. A lot of lake access has been blown in by snow. You'll either need a 4 wheeler or snowmobile to get around and I have neither. Plus all the snow on the ice is causing a lot of weight and causing water to come up the ice holes. Snow on ice can insulate it too and cause weak ice. Hard to say what's under the snow. I just don't trust it and will wait for it to thaw. That's only a month or so away.