# What are some tasty fresh water fish?



## ringorock (Sep 15, 2019)

I live in Atlanta, now. Used to be Savannah. I'll eat practically anything that comes from the salt. What are some good fish to catch and cook up here in Atlanta? I have an explorer kayak with some tiny rods. I also think that freshwater fish taste like dirty aquarium, in general. Yes, I know what dirty aquarium tastes like.


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## 1eyefishing (Sep 15, 2019)

Subscribing...


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## Ruger#3 (Sep 15, 2019)

Crappie, bream and yellow perch are at the top of the list for me.


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## Nicodemus (Sep 15, 2019)

Bream, catfish, bass, they all eat good.


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## Lindseys Grandpa (Sep 15, 2019)

How you handle them has a lot to do with how they taste. Throwing a bunch of fish in a livewell with warm water where they die and float around to you get home dont make good eating. I don't put fish in a livewell . I have a cooler of ice on my boat and after catching i either release or put on ice.


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## Coenen (Sep 15, 2019)

Yellow perch or walleye would be my answer, hands down, but it's tough to get a mess down here.

Best reliable eating fish here are crappie, catfish and trout. Not necessarily in that order, but they're all tasty!


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## NE GA Pappy (Sep 15, 2019)

Coenen said:


> Yellow perch or walleye would be my answer, hands down, but it's tough to get a mess down here.
> 
> Best reliable eating fish here are crappie, catfish and trout. Not necessarily in that order, but they're all tasty!



you are right about walleye and yellow perch.  Crappie would be my next choice, wild trout, a hand sized bluegill, small channel cat, then stocked trout


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## BDD (Sep 23, 2019)

walleye ,  by far the best eating fresh water fish , just not to common to GA.  I grew up in PA and we ate a ton and also Black Bass.   I think the Shoal bass is very good,  but don't let
anyone on the board know you ate a Shoal bass you might get banned....


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## blood on the ground (Sep 23, 2019)

Nicodemus said:


> Bream, catfish, bass, they all eat good.


Had a guy tell me he didn't know bass were edible.... clueless!


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## Nicodemus (Sep 23, 2019)

blood on the ground said:


> Had a guy tell me he didn't know bass were edible.... clueless!




Yep. People like that don`t know the difference between a bad mess of fish and mess of bad fish. 

Truth be known, they probably don`t even know what a mess of fish is.


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## MikeyD6 (Sep 23, 2019)

It has a lot to do with how they're prepared.  Striped bass, hybrids, and white bass are all excellent, but you have to filet them and cut the red meat and fat off of them.  Same goes for bigger catfish too.  That is what gives them a fishy taste. 

Also, if you know you're going to eat them, the best thing to do is put fish on ice immediately.  I put some ice and water in a cooler, and in they go.  It kills them quickly and they don't thrash around build up a lot of lactic acid.  Plus they're a lot easier to clean because they're stiff and straight.


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## NCHillbilly (Sep 23, 2019)

How they're handled and the water they come from sometimes makes more difference than what species they are. And if freshwater fish taste like a dirty aquarium, you are doing something wrong, for sure. The better freshwater fish are every bit as good or better than saltwater fish. I've eaten plenty of both.

My list, from best to still pretty durn good:

walleye
yellow perch
crappie
smallmouth bass
wild trout
flathead catfish
channel catfish
stocked rainbow and brook trout
blue catfish
bream, collectively
spotted bass
gar
white bass/striper


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## ringorock (Sep 23, 2019)

NCHillbilly said:


> How they're handled and the water they come from sometimes makes more difference than what species they are. And if freshwater fish taste like a dirty aquarium, you are doing something wrong, for sure. The better freshwater fish are every bit as good or better than saltwater fish. I've eaten plenty of both.
> 
> My list, from best to still pretty durn good:
> 
> ...



Actually, my wife told me that I just don't like fish. Growing up, my mom would grill fish in a way that the meat gets bone dried. Anything else is unacceptable.


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## NCHillbilly (Sep 23, 2019)

ringorock said:


> Actually, my wife told me that I just don't like fish. Growing up, my mom would grill fish in a way that the meat gets bone dried. Anything else is unacceptable.


If fish is overcooked to the point of being bone dry and like jerky, I guess it does taste like dirt. Whether it's a ditch bream or a piece of $1,000 a lb high sushi-grade bluefin.


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## Lindseys Grandpa (Sep 23, 2019)

NCHillbilly said:


> If fish is overcooked to the point of being bone dry and like jerky, I guess it does taste like dirt. Whether it's a ditch bream or a piece of $1,000 a lb high sushi-grade bluefin.


Not just fish any food.


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## little rascal (Sep 25, 2019)

Spotted Bass will be better than anything above. No size limit on most lakes ( small ones are best), easy to catch, pretty white meat, no fishy taste.


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## little rascal (Sep 25, 2019)

These were tasty!


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## Big7 (Sep 25, 2019)

I'd say no carp at all. Use smaller mullet if you get on them. Not really a target for me.

My list, subject to change if I'm on some.

Striped Bass.
Flathead.
Blue Cat.  
Channel Cat.
Brim - all species. Tied for #4 with White and Black Crappie.
Bass. Big Mouth, Small Mouth, Spots, etc.
Yellow Perch.
Any legal Trout. (If available)

This is just Georgia. No doubt, I'll edit when I think of a few more.

South Carolina and Florida is a little different.
For S.C. add White Perch.


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## NCHillbilly (Sep 25, 2019)

Big7 said:


> I'd say no carp at all. Use smaller mullet if you get on them. Not really a target for me.
> 
> My list, subject to change if I'm on some.
> 
> ...


I am one of those folks who hear people say something isn't good to eat and don't believe them until I try it. They were right about carp. Carp sucks. The whole fish tastes like that red streak you cut out of a striper or big catfish. Strong, fishy, uck.


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## Big7 (Sep 25, 2019)

NCHillbilly said:


> I am one of those folks who hear people say something isn't good to eat and don't believe them until I try it. They were right about carp. Carp sucks. The whole fish tastes like that red streak you cut out of a striper or big catfish. Strong, fishy, uck.



Get those dime size scales off, leaving the tough skin- makes good jug and trot line bait.
A turtle can't even get that off w/o getting hooked. ? 

That reminds me. Does Turtle and Craw
 Dad's count in fresh water? Recon thats another thread. ?


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## NCHillbilly (Sep 25, 2019)

little rascal said:


> Spotted Bass will be better than anything above. No size limit on most lakes ( small ones are best), easy to catch, pretty white meat, no fishy taste.


I've ate a lot of them. They're good, but not as good as walleye, yellow perch, smallmouth, wild trout, or crappie.


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## Buckman18 (Sep 26, 2019)

I agree with what was said about the body of water having an impact on flavor. I live on the upper Chattahoochee River between Helen and Lake Lanier. Bass, stripers, catfish, perch, gar, etc. caught from the river are much better eating than from the lake. The lake fish are still great, but you can definitely tell a difference.


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## blt152 (Sep 26, 2019)

I'm originally from northeast Ohio and have to say that walleye, yellow perch and crappie can't be beat. You have not lived until you've eaten a platter of walleye caught through the ice on Lake Erie.


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## greg_n_clayton (Sep 26, 2019)

NE GA Pappy said:


> you are right about walleye and yellow perch.  Crappie would be my next choice, wild trout, a hand sized bluegill, small channel cat, then stocked trout


Time to go get a mess of perch  ! Maybe a few skwerls at the same time !


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## the Lackster (Oct 2, 2019)

Quite a wide scale here i see. I would have to put crappie at the top of my list followed by flathead. After that everything else just runs together. Apart from carp its all good to me.


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## krizia829 (Oct 2, 2019)

Not sure what you got up there but down here in Miami, I've had largemouth bass, crappie, mayan cichlid, peacock bass, bluegills, etc. They're all great tasting fish if prepared properly.


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## HeavyTwenty (Oct 3, 2019)

1-3 lb LMBass tastes good. 6 lb LMBass that you accidentally gut hooked... I'd rate barely passable.


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## Limbhanger2881 (Oct 5, 2019)

Paddlefish
Walleye or Sauger
Cutthroat Trout or Brooke Trout
Crappie or bluegill
Stripper or hybrid
All bass species
Catfish


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## HossBog (Oct 6, 2019)

Since the first letter in this forum is “G,” I’ll skip walleye and say yellow perch. The perch family are great. Y’all boys know what I mean about G. Not many walleyes here.


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## AceOfTheBase (Oct 6, 2019)

Yah, walleye gets my vote - if you can find one !!
Neighbor has caught a few bellow the dam on Carter.

Thing about catfish is wild vs farm raised, ie good vs not good.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 6, 2019)

HossBog said:


> Since the first letter in this forum is “G,” I’ll skip walleye and say yellow perch. The perch family are great. Y’all boys know what I mean about G. Not many walleyes here.


Most bodies of water in northern G have walleyes. G isn't just the Coastal Plain. It's a big state with a lot of different ecological zones. They are native there in the mountain drainages, and stocking has increased their range. Clayton  is just as G as Hahira.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 6, 2019)

AceOfTheBase said:


> Yah, walleye gets my vote - if you can find one !!
> Neighbor has caught a few bellow the dam on Carter.
> 
> Thing about catfish is wild vs farm raised, ie good vs not good.


Agree 100%. Farm raised catfish tastes nothing like wild catfish.


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## HydraYak (Oct 31, 2019)

Crappie!


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## Teh Wicked (Nov 6, 2019)

Coming from a Salt commercial background...Here is a list of fish I say rival saltwater fish, in order of tastyness.

1. Walleye, hands down without a doubt the best freshwater fish you can get in GA. Anyone who says different hasn't had one or they cooked it wrong. I don't know why this species is so much better, they primarily eat other small shad and fish which usually means they are much more gamey tasting and oily. But for Walleye, not the case, fine dining of freshwater.
2. Toss up between Crappie, Yellow perch, bream and maybe white bass. all are good, usually because their diet is mostly insect and other very small prey.
3. Catfish, Striper and Hybrids. stick to smaller fish for keeper sizes. Anything over 10lbs and your going to have wasted fillets in the freezer. a 10lb cat will feed a family of four for two nights at the dinner table.
5. Bass, ultra gamey tasting, much like Catfish, because their primary prey is other fish and bottom feeders that filter feed fish poop. Mercury content will be higher in these types of fish because of their diet, which leads to Gout when you get older. You don't want gout in your toe...

Trout will fall in there around 2 or 3 on my list. Very edible, but just not my favorite to consume, typically the 10-12" ones are best eating and big enough to easily fillet.

Be smart, enjoy


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## Dialer (Nov 22, 2019)

blt152 said:


> I'm originally from northeast Ohio and have to say that walleye, yellow perch and crappie can't be beat. You have not lived until you've eaten a platter of walleye caught through the ice on Lake Erie.


MAN!  That DOES sound good!


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## GONoob (Jan 13, 2020)

I cant stand a catfish's after taste. Tastes like sewage. I find that the smaller ones are better, though.


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## blakely (Jan 13, 2020)

Not the first mention of jackfish - the best tasting freshwater fish there is. Next would be red horse sucker but they're usually caught in a net.


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## Cmp1 (Jan 13, 2020)

Lake Superior Whitefish,,,,not as good as Walleye,but close,,,,


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## SouthGa Fisher (Jan 14, 2020)

blakely said:


> Not the first mention of jackfish - the best tasting freshwater fish there is. Next would be red horse sucker but they're usually caught in a net.


Most people don't know how to clean/cook a jack or a sucker...I was brought up running nets for suckers. Nothing beats them cooked on the bank of the river by a fire. I've had every fish mentioned above except paddlefish, **including walleye from the north GA mountain lakes**, and none compare.

Walleye is easily next on the list though.


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## Nicodemus (Jan 14, 2020)

Red horse and jack.


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## SouthGa Fisher (Jan 14, 2020)

Nicodemus said:


> Red horse and jack.
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 998824


That is a lost art that few know how to do anymore. If someone trusts you enough to eat a sucker you've cleaned and cooked for them, then you know what you're doing.

Personally, I'll only eat one if I cleaned it. Too many people think they can do it until they spit out a mouthful of bones.


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## sasmojoe (Jan 14, 2020)

Jackfish, mudfish, suckers, carp ain’t to bad


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## Cmp1 (Jan 14, 2020)

SouthGa Fisher said:


> Most people don't know how to clean/cook a jack or a sucker...I was brought up running nets for suckers. Nothing beats them cooked on the bank of the river by a fire. I've had every fish mentioned above except paddlefish, **including walleye from the north GA mountain lakes**, and none compare.
> 
> Walleye is easily next on the list though.


Is a White sucker the same as a Red Horse?

Try Whitefish if you get a chance,,,,really good smoked,cold smoked,that is,,,,


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## blakely (Jan 16, 2020)

SouthGa Fisher said:


> That is a lost art that few know how to do anymore. If someone trusts you enough to eat a sucker you've cleaned and cooked for them, then you know what you're doing.
> 
> Personally, I'll only eat one if I cleaned it. Too many people think they can do it until they spit out a mouthful of bones.



You're correct about people not knowing how to gash suckers and jacks. When I was doing a lot of netting, my boys were very young I'd give them suckers that I'd gashed and never had a problem.

When gashing, I keep my knife shaving sharp and would touch it up on a butcher's steel when I started feeling the bones as I gashed the fillets.

From looking at the pic, Nic knows what he's doing.


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## SouthGa Fisher (Jan 16, 2020)

Yall are missing one thing...backbones


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## fish hawk (Feb 1, 2020)




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## Twiggbuster (Feb 1, 2020)

Crappie and trout thank you.
Colder the better.


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## Buckman18 (Feb 1, 2020)

Wild mountain trout are rather tasty, especially fried up in bacon grease.


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## Cmp1 (Feb 1, 2020)

fish hawk said:


> View attachment 1000991


? ? ? ?,,,,I might have to put walleye as the Fillet though,,,,


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## HydraYak (Feb 27, 2020)

Crappie!


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## Geno67 (Feb 27, 2020)

A lot of fish can be good that you would not expect. Blue cats that chase shad in the turbulent water in tailraces are generally quite good. As with anything, it depends on what they have been eating and the water quality where they're caught.

Bass are ok.
Specks (crappie - not speckled trout) are good but on the small side.
Most if not all of the trout are very good but pink fleshed.
Walleye are very good.
Sauger are very good.
The entire perch family are good but usually small.


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## nickel back (Feb 28, 2020)

spotted bass, eat all you want


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## oldguy (Feb 28, 2020)

Bream, bream, and bream!


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## NCHillbilly (Feb 28, 2020)

GONoob said:


> I cant stand a catfish's after taste. Tastes like sewage. I find that the smaller ones are better, though.


You are doing something wrong, then, because catfish don't have an aftertaste. They taste like a flounder fillet if done right. You are either eating nasty farm-raised catfish, or you aren't cleaning them. Get anything red or yellow off there, down to the clean white meat. Remove all the skin and gunk under it. Steaks off a 50-lb flathead taste just like Chilean sea bass or halibut if they're handled right.


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## fishfryer (Feb 28, 2020)

oldguy said:


> Bream, bream, and bream!


Your three answers are all correct. Guess what my favorite fish is,clue : spelled bream.


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## oldfella1962 (Oct 22, 2021)

blood on the ground said:


> Had a guy tell me he didn't know bass were edible.... clueless!



could be because so many bass fishermen practice "catch & release" it would seem like nobody wants to keep & eat them.   I keep one now & then, especially if they are hooked deep, bleeding & otherwise torn up from being caught. But the small lake I'm fishing at tomorrow for example is overpopulated with small, skinny bass so I'd be doing the lake a favor by keeping a few.


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## oldfella1962 (Oct 22, 2021)

blakely said:


> Not the first mention of jackfish - the best tasting freshwater fish there is. Next would be red horse sucker but they're usually caught in a net.



jackfish pickled (vinegar melts the bones) is great. Recipes & techniques are on the internet. It's a great way to prepare the really small ones.


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## oldfella1962 (Oct 22, 2021)

SouthGa Fisher said:


> That is a lost art that few know how to do anymore. If someone trusts you enough to eat a sucker you've cleaned and cooked for them, then you know what you're doing.
> 
> Personally, I'll only eat one if I cleaned it. Too many people think they can do it until they spit out a mouthful of bones.


 
Suckers wood smoked are great. In Wisconsin we could legally net them when they spawned in creeks. They were a different kind of sucker (maybe white sucker) but I would think redhorse would be about the same.


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## C.Killmaster (Nov 1, 2021)

Just so everyone knows we have an endangered species of sucker, the Robust Redhorse.  If you plan to keep any suckers make sure you know how to identify them correctly.

http://www.robustredhorse.com/


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## 35 Whelen (Nov 2, 2021)

Walleye 
Yellow Perch
Smallmouth Bass
Crappie 
Trout


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## Alex from GA (Nov 30, 2021)

Walleye are the best but spotted bass are really good too.  Every couple of weeks I keep a 15-17" spot for dinner.


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## Qazaq15 (Dec 1, 2021)

The water quality makes a big difference too.  A catfish caught in cooler, moving water will taste better than one caught out of a warm farm pond.


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