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What's up with the Rock Bass?? They seem to be infested in all area lakes. By a slot I mean a slot up the belly, then immediatly returned... turtles and birds gotta eat too! confused.gif

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Why not just eat them?

My brother had some guests from Japan here a few years back, and the winds were pretty fierce. They went to Phelps and shore fished. Came home with a bunch of rock bass that the guests insisted upon eating.

We shrugged, cleaned them up, and deep fried them with beer batter. They were very, very good eating. I don't toss them back.

What you are advocating is wanton waste, and illegal.

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I was curious one time last year so I kept a couple goldeneye beasts, I filleted them and mush, that was all I could see and they were bloody too. Junk...if ya gave em to a farmer to fertilize his field would that be wanton waste.

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I eat them, they don't seem any different than bluegils or sunnies. But I know what you mean by infestation - there are a lot of them out there. Maybe we should organize a rock bass fishing tournament?

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Ive been eating them foe years they are my sisters favorite fish no mushier than crappie, Stalker has some nice ones in there

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We keep quite few as well on Clitherall . My mother in law loves them , I can't remember exactly what the correct term for how I clean them is (whole dressed??) . I gut them , remove head ; tail ; fins , then skin them leaving them bone-in . She'll fry them in the pan w/ butter .

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I grew up on Swan Lake(the one in Itasca County, not the one in Otter Tail) and we would catch some monster Rock Bass. Most were between 14-17 inches, but there were a few closing in on 21-22". If we caught them in the spring they were great eating, but in the summer they laid in the shallows and got mushy. A lot of them seemed to get wormy also. I think a lot of people consider them rough fish even though they aren't.

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You sure about those measurements?

Here is the state record info for Rockies.

Bass, Rock (tie)

2-0 13.5 inches / 12.5 girth Osakis Lake Todd 05/10/1998

2-0 12.6 inches / 12.4 girth Lake Winnibigoshish Cass 08/30/2004

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I got a "kick" out of the size of them Rockies too! A couple years ago, a guy my Son was talking to on the dock at our resort on Star Lake, said he was catching 3 pound Rockies near the Big Island. My Son told him he should have reported that as a record. As the MN State record is 2.0 pounds! He never said another word, Just tucked his tail and walked away!

I like catching them. They open up that Big mouth of theirs and you think you got a wopper! They fry up just as good as a Gill too! I'll take them, if you don't want them!

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If i could catch catch 20 inch rock bass there would be no need to fish anything else. I'm not a big fan of eating them but a 20 incher would probably give a guy quite a battle. I actually live on a lake in brainerd that has some nice ones in it by nice i mean the biggest we ever got was a 1-6 so we chased the record when it was at 1-8 for a while but all hopes were shattered when it went to 2 pounds. Keep catchin and eatin them i'm glad someone does;)

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Uh-oh. Seems I have placed my foot in my yapper. Sorry about the " fish tale"

Never did actually measure them, so I shouldn't have given any lengths. They were, however, larger than any I have caught around here. My brother and I would catch the same ones off the dock day after day. After all that feeding, they did get big. Anyway, the point behind my previous post was that we did eat Rockies we caught in colder water.

It seems those fish have gotten bigger over the past 25 years...in my mind.

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Good thing you ain't fishing for muskies. There probably would have been several 80 inchers in your boat by now tongue.gifgrin.gif

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Da Ranger -

Man, those are some huge rockies! grin.gif It's ok, all fish get bigger when we are so close to Hambone's pellet machine...

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    • Brianf.
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    • CigarGuy
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    • PSU
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