Crappie time......

[BigHoss]

ya'll been eating any fresh caught crappie this spring yet? found an old christmas tree patch a few days ago while fishing and took home a boat load of crappie. i love catfish as much as anyone, but pan fried crappie dredged in a mixture of flour/cornmeal is as fine and as SOUTHERN as it gets...spring-time right of passage. tonight we're going to pan fry that crappie & drink some beer (blue moon) early. then we're going to grill some 2.5" porterhouse and get in to a bottle of duckhorn cabernet and an arg. malbec a buddy bought me. spring time in Tennessee.

[srhcb]

Up here the walleye is considered the fish of choice for eating, but I've always preferred crisp fried panfish, the crappie being the ultimate.

Of course, you'd have to venture out on fairly thin ice and chop a hole to catch any right now.

SB (where the season doesn't open until mid-May)

[racheld]

Yep---nine nice packages in the freezer, from a foray South by DS#2 last weekend. He and DS#1 (who still lives down there) and a friend from here had a good ole time fishing midst the greening and the coming of Spring...they were even there for Time-Change and figure that by rolling home on Sunday, they lost TWO hours in the exchange of mileage and time--one in the night and another as they drove home. They count it well worth it for these nice fish and the two great gatherings they had out at the Huntin' Camp.

#2 already cooked a nice mess for his family, and we'll have some probably tomorrow, with hushpuppies and slaw and maybe some special fried potatoes, with the nice flour batter with garlic and salt and pepper and paprika, making little crispins all over the fluffy, crisp slices. Homemade tartar sauce with our own last-year-canned dill pickles and some sweet onion. Big frosty glasses of 40-weight tea with lemon, maybe a cobbler out of that last couple of bags of peaches I put up last year.

All this to say: I cook fish, and gather raves and compliments. I just don't like eating it. And Fishing, itself---the calm of the lake/stream/river, the soft sigh of the water against the boat---all that is just delightful, but speaking as one who married into a family of Huntin'/Fishin' fanatics, it just ain't fun when you have three little children, all a year apart, and you spend part of your lake-time escorting the girl one back to the house to weewee and the rest of the time either baiting a hook, taking a fish off a hook, or getting someone's hook untangled from his screaming sister's hair.

I learnt my lesson, and now, I just let the fish come home to me.

PS: Big Hoss, whatever happened to Uncle Bud's Catfish place? We used to stop several times a year on our way South and back---have they all closed now? It was Chris' favorite place for catfish, besides our house.

Edited April 9, 2006 by racheld (log)

[BigHoss]

different rumors on that. i know for sure that he sold out, rumor has it the buyer went chapter 11. i know that bud was selling fish out of a vending trailer in the area of grassland (between nashville & franklin, tn). last fall he opened up a new fish place up in ashland city at a marina on the cumberland river. the guy makes great fish. best fish (catfish) ive ever eaten at a rest. was at ed shaw's in shiloh park (civil war battlefield) down near counce, tn.....unreal!!! hagies up the road is a close second.

[Lan4Dawg]

different rumors on that.  i know for sure that he sold out, rumor has it the buyer went chapter 11.  i know that bud was selling fish out of a vending trailer in the area of grassland (between nashville & franklin, tn).  last fall he opened up a new fish place up in ashland city at a marina on the cumberland river.  the guy makes great fish.  best fish (catfish) ive ever eaten at a rest. was at ed shaw's in shiloh park (civil war battlefield) down near counce, tn.....unreal!!!  hagies up the road is a close second.

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was wondering what had happened to Uncle Bud's as they always got great reviews and had just opened a 2nd & 3rd location here in metro Atl then just as suddenly disappeared.

I can second Hagies--talk about in the middle of no where! We were staying at Corinth and stopped on our way back fr/ spending the day at Shiloh. I had read about the place and wanted to try it. We drove down the dirt road for a while when the Fuss said, "I really do not think there is any thing back here."

Good food but one of the best places we ever had cat fish was at a state park in Mississippi. It could be just the fact that it was as unusual and unexpected as it was but we enjoyed it. We were over for the UGA/Ole Miss game and I had rented a cabin at Geo W. Cossar (I believe it was) State Park just South of Oxford. I asked the lady at the park when I made the reservation about a place for cat fish and she said I should just stick around the park for their Friday fish supper. Figuring "why not" we did so and I swear half the county showed up for the cat fish buffet--fried catfish--whole and fillets, slaw, hush puppies, fries, mac & cheese, &c. And it was cheap too! We ate our fill and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

HDHD