What is the best tasting catfish? flatheads or channels?
Catfish Fishing
Best tasting catfish
I agree, Flatheads are just awesome!
I live in PDC and fish the Wisconsin and the Mississippi so when I do fish cats I look for Channel Cats that yield a fillet just larger than the bun I use, I give away bigger ones or throw them back if they are over 20 inches. My fishing partner says he likes Wisconsin river cats over the Mississippi cats but I really don't taste any difference.(maybe the hot sauce hides the flavor difference) The little cats seem to love stinkbait but we do often catch a couple when fishing gills with crawlers. As far as Flatheads go I catch one or two a year accidently while fishing walleye or even perch with minnows and they always go into the cooler.
Flathead cats are divine. I've eaten them up to 20 lb (now only keep under 10 lb) and no discernible difference in taste. I would rather have Flathead than Walleye or Sauger. Bluegill and Perch slightly edge out Flathead, but not by much. The meat has the consistency of scallops. Delicious. As was said, you MUST bleed them out. I cut the tail on both sides and let it swim around in the live-well til it croaks. Most channels I catch get smoked. I only keep 15-20 inchers. Excellent that way. Like jerky.
Caught plenty of Flathead, but never tried. Guess from other's saying so that cooked(boiled) like Poorman's Lobster is far superior tasting than a Channel Catfish cooked using any method/recipe any day. I've eaten plenty of Channel Catfish baked, fried, boiled, and smoked. The smaller one's definitely are better to my taste buds depending what body of water they came out of and area caught at the time of the year. Channel Catfish any size smoked doesn't seem to matter since the brine and smoking process kills most off taste, especially the larger one's. I try to cut out most of the mud line(a.k.a. blood line) if filleting and some areas of the belly meat if it look's toxic. I like to make a Smoked Fish Spread out of larger Channel Catfish I keep and other rough species of fish. A few cold Mt. Dew's(lol, nottt...) and Smoked Fish Spread on a Ritz style cracker make's me a happy Angler!