North Marina Early Perch Search 10-23-24

[TubeDude]

That's a great story and rings very true. Not a lot of native Utahns have tried much outside of trout,  especially the older generation, and many have never eaten catfish. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family that fished for many different species. Mostly trout, but Willard crappie and cats (before shad), Pineview crappie and bullheads, Bear River catfish trips, smallmouth bass at Pineview and Flaming Gorge. We kept and ate all types. My wife's family had never eaten much fish before I married into the family. But I have them over a couple of times every year for a fish fry. They always ask what kind of fish, but never hesitate to try anything and everything.  Nothing is ever left over.

You have been around long enough to have also seen the "perch revolution".  In former times, virtually all Utah tanglers were troutaholics and every fish without spots or red slashes was "trash fish".  When I first fished Utah back in the early 1960s...after living and fishing in California...I was appalled at seeing the locals disdainfully throwing big perch up on the bank.  I had learned long ago that all panfish were good eats...as well as providing good sport when the spotted fish were being finicky.  

In the early 1980s I was conducting little seminars at some of the Anglers' Inn stores to show how to fillet and cook non-trout species.  After a lot of requests for recipes...which I typed out on a typewriter and had copies made...I put together a small book "Fetchin' and Fixin' The Fishes of Utah"...with sections on each of the species then common...including the warm water fishes like perch, bass, walleyes and catfish.  It had a lot of easy recipes and I'd like to think I helped steer a few folks away from trout only.  


I have one good story that kinda sums up how a lot of people discover how good non-trout fishies can be.   Before we moved to Arizona about 1984 I had a conversation with the elderly neighbor across my back fence.  Told him I was going fishing at Deer Creek...and hoped to bring home a big batch of perch.  "PERCH?" he scoffed.  "Those is trash fish."  Not wanting to start a neighborly war, I diplomatically suggested that if he ever tried them he wouldn't be so negative.  Backing down a little, he admitted that he had never tasted them...but wouldn't know where to even start for fixing any.  TA-DAAAAA.  I offered to bring him some fillets and coating for frying some if he would just try them.  DONE.  

The rest of the story is that I handed him a bag of nice perch fillets and another bag with some dry coating mix over the fence.  Told him to shake up the fillets in the bag of mix and then fry them until browned on both sides.  The next morning I was picking strawberries from my planter when he hollered at me over the fence.  "Hey.  There was something wrong with those perch."  Expecting the worst...maybe a leftover bone in the fillets or something...I asked what was the problem.  "You don't know when to stop eating them." he replied.  After that he was always a happy recipient whenever I donated some more perch fillets.