Wannabe fisherman

[Col Forbin]

It is hard to beat a crappie for eating! Fun to catch too.

[Moose1am]

I have to agree. Crappie in the 9" to 10" range are very good eating. The larger they get the more time they have to bio-accumulate more toxins such as mercury and PCB's. Get 25 of them 9" crappie and or 10" crappie and you have a good meal.

Fry them up in peanut oil heated to 375 deg F or broil them in the oven and let the fat drip off them into a pan below. You can grill them too or even smoke them in a slow smoker.

I use a fry daddy with hot peanut oil which is cholesterol free and doesn't burn as quickly as vegetable oils.

If the oil is hot and you don't put too much mean in the oil at one time and keep the temperature up above 350 deg F after the fillets are dropped into the oil they can cook in about 4 minute and be lightly browned on the outside and flaky white on the inside.

Drain the crappie fillets and or pat them with paper towels to remove the excess oil.

Now get some bread of your choice and put some Miracle Whip Dressing, horse radish and mustard on the bread and add two to four crappie fillets and make a sandwich. That's good eating IMHO. I'll normally eat at least two sandwiches like this for lunch or dinner.

Or you can just eat the fired up crappie fillets with some melted button and lemon juice spread over them. That's really good also.

Just be careful and don't eat to many each week or month. Mercury can be excreted out of the body over time. Be careful if you have a wife who's pregnant and don't feed her too many fillets of contaminated fish. Consult the IDNR and the IDEM web sites for information on fish and what contaminates they may have in them when caught from different waters in IN. KY has the same information and I would imagine that IL does too.

It's hard to eat what you don't catch... So to help you figure out how to catch a few crappie I would suggest two things. Pick up a copy of "Crappie World" magazine at your local book store. And order a copy of "Crappie Wisdom" from In_Fisherman. I would also recommend purchasing the books called Crappie Fundamentals and Crappie Location also from In-Fisherman.

Check out www.In-Fisherman.com

http://www.in-fisherman.com/magazine.../article_list/

https://store.intermediaoutdoors.com/shop/Default.aspx

http://www.crappieworldonline.com/

http://www.ecrappie.com/index.html

It is hard to beat a crappie for eating! Fun to catch too.