I was at Lake Powell all last week and we reserve one or two nights on the menu for fish. We cooked some crappie, walleye, and a few smallmouth filets with panko bread crumbs, pan fried.
Also, we had caught a few Stripers, which we don't usually target, but catch here and there when fishing for the other species.
I filet the Stripers, cut the red meat away and then cut the long filet into smaller pieces. Also cooked the Striper meat in panko bread crumbs in a pan.
The Striper meat seemed very mushy to me, where the other fish meat was pretty firm, more to my liking. I'll add that all fish are well taken care of before we filet.
I have eaten sea going Striped Bass meat raw, so I don't have anything against the species. Just wondering if others have found a cooking method that preserves some flakiness, firmness of the meat.
Thanks for any advice.
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In my experience, the key is to get the meat on ice ASAP (as soon as there's a lull in the catching). I fillet them right away and put the meat (skin attached for identification) in a Ziploc on ice. This has always kept the meat firm for me. When I'm ready to cook, I remove the skin and any red meat, then pan fry the whole fillet in a little butter and some seasoning. But as long as the fillets are put on ice quickly, any cooking method seems to work.
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They have been talking about this over on Waynes Words alot this year. It seems that if the stripers are looking skinny then the meat on them has been comming up mushy.
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Good advice on getting them on ice. We use livewells at Powell, but the Stripers don't last long for some reason. So yes, even though we filet them shortly after their demise, they were not on ice. Have to try it next time.
Actually, when I fish for trout I always carry a cooler with plenty of ice. I'm always amazed to see others with trout on stringers in the water.
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These Stripers were pretty healthy with a good wide filet on them, which is why we thought we would try them. Thanks for the info.
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At Powell, I always have 1 or 2 large coolers about half full of ice. When we get into the stripers (or walleye, cats....etc) I'll put the whole fish on ice until I'm done fishing that spot (or until the coolers are full when the striper fishing is good). Then I go find some shade, cut the fillets off and put em in the Ziplocs.
My dad used to say he didn't like striper until we learned about getting them on ice quickly. Now I do it to every fish i keep (which isn't many unless I'm at Powell catching stripers). A nice fat, firm striper fillet actually reminds me of Halibut.
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I'll have to make sure we put the Stripers on ice next time.
Thanks again for the info. Tight lines!
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If you salt the fillets and roll in paper towels to remove excess moisture, they will be much firmer. I do this with fresh fillets that feel less firm and with previously frozen fillets, especially crappie.
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crimson,
in addition to the ice, try cutting them up right away. Like above mentioned, catch a bunch, but filet them right then and there. , then on the ice.
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Interesting idea. I'll have to try it next time. Thanks for the input.
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Good recommendation. As I mentioned above, we can keep most species alive in the livewell and normally filet at lunch time or the end of the day. The Stripers are to big to keep in the livewell too long.
Have to change tactics, maybe start carrying filet boards along with a big cooler with ice. Thanks for the reply.
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[quote a_bow_nut]They have been talking about this over on Waynes Words alot this year. It seems that if the stripers are looking skinny then the meat on them has been comming up mushy.[/quote]
Remember that the stripers are starving to death!!
This is why fishing has been so great this year for the stripers. They have peaked out -- their population has risen so high that they will (have) wiped out the available forage and are now starving to death. I would guess that the "mushy" fish were the larger sized stripers, which are the group that will begin to struggle the most. The smaller stripers are able to handle the warmer surface water temperatures, and thus can continue to prey upon the shad that are still in the lake. As water temps warm, the larger stripers will be forced deeper where there is no forage, and they will begin to atrophy until they die.
The population will most likely crash this summer -- which is both good and bad. Hopefully the gizzard shad will help improve the recovery time of stripers by providing a spawn every year, unlike the threadfin shad which would get nearly wiped out when striper populations reached levels like what we see today.
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And thus we have the Eyore rainy grey cloud doom and gloom report for ya.
I'll admit - I know nothing about the Striper population biology down there. But don't know that it's as dismal as played out.
Forage comes, forage goes. but there's always forage. What I do know of Stripers - they aren't sterile, so the do repopulate. A bust and boom, likely, typical. It'll happen - when where and how, not a clue.
But if you're finding good fish, the tips on treatment may make all the difference. Then see what happens next year, compare, and let us know.
I generally have a hard time with the "doom and gloom" reports. I like to think when I'm not catching, it's because I suck, not a report on actual fish conditions@! Time and place, and time on the water.. All well spent!
coyote -- I appreciate your optimism. Take a look at Wayne's Words and you'll see that Wayne doesn't exactly share your optimism.
Lake Powell has always had these fluctuations with stripers. Here's a quick run-down of how it has historically worked:
1. threadfin shad adults are small -- up to 8"
2. striper populations feed on shad.
3. When striper populations get to high levels they can easily wipe out (or nearly wipe out) the threadfin population.
4. When this happens, forage becomes scarce and stripers move into the main channel in search of forage. What they find is anchovy chum. Anglers then catch stripers by the 100's because they are starving and willing to eat anything they can find.
5. With threadfin numbers knocked back so severely by large populations of stripers, it takes a number of years before threadfin have good spawns to get their population numbers back up.
6. due to low numbers of threadfin, the stripers continue to starve. Their population will crash.
We are currently in that max striper population cycle, and they are starving to death. Just look at them, and you can see their condition is going downhill fast. We will have a die-off this summer.
However, optimism can continue to be high. Why? Gizzard shad! Gizzard shad populations are now firmly in place. This is good news -- because Gizzard shad adults are large -- around 22" and 4lbs. The majority of stripers cannot feed on adult gizzard shad. This means that we should get a good spawn EVERY YEAR. This would tremendously help the striper populations rebound from crashes quicker!
Fishing at Powell right now for stripers is phenomenal. There is only 1 way it can go, which is down. Hopefully with gizzard shad firmly established, the downhill slide will be minimized and we'll have good fishing for years to come.
Concerning quality of striper fillets: if your filleting fish that is starving to death, I would expect the quality to be poor.
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