Quabbin Res, Massachusetts

[T-Man]

Made the 1st trip of the year to Quabbin today with my son Pat in the old Smokercraft. We were after crappie and LMB and we did pretty damn well. We had 12 LMB to 5-1/4lbs and scored around 30 crappie.

Man it's nice to have a warm April. We had surface temps at 60 today and you could tell cause the bite was on for this early in the season.

We could'nt get away from the yellow perch and pickerel in some places when we were trying to get the calicos. Tiny minnows were the ticket and Pat's big largemouth ate the smallest minnow in the bucket.

Near one blowdown the LMB bite was so good I was using dried up used minnows and it made no difference. They whacked them as soon as I twitched'em once around the wood. I had about a 3-1/2 pounder that ate my minnow and when I got it to the boat it had a 7" perch jammed in his stomach already hanging out it's throat!! It was a fine day to be out.

Nice LMB


Crappie Supper!


Better LMB


Perch found in bass's throat


Bent Twig's Big bass of the day


Bucket-O-Crappie!!

[Hotrod]

Nice Capt Pat..  I miss that nice calm freshwater fishing sometimes

[IrishAyes]

Nice report, you had a great day on the water. 

[T-Man]

Yup it's fun to hit the sweetwater a few times before the charter season starts and then it's all STRIPERS!!!!!!!!!!

[brijones1]

nice job guys 

[ped579]

Nice catch, I was just looking at all my freshwater stuff the other day.  I might give them a try, saltwater ultra lights for the flats.  Might be fun...

Happy Catching

Paul

[Bucktail]

Nice catch! I love FW bass fishing!  Are you from Mass. or did you just go up to fish there?

[T-Man]

Nice catch! I love FW bass fishing!  Are you from Mass. or did you just go up to fish there?

I use to live in Mass now I live in northern CT.

[Bucktail]

OIC.  Probably got a few nice smallmouth spots up there too, eh?

[Capt. Mike]

Nice catch guys!!! 

[T-Man]

OIC.  Probably got a few nice smallmouth spots up there too, eh?

The smallmouth bite will be awesome in another couple of weeks once they hit the beds. I just hope I get back there. With the Stripers that are already in the CT River I may be busy!!

[Pops Soul]

Nice Job guys  Great pics also 

[mboy]

Them crappies is GOOD eats

[T-Man]

I thought you guys might enjoy this and even find it helpful. It's from last fall but applies just fine to "spring" crappie too!

I know that most of you are pretty handy with a fillet knife and probably have your own favorite style, but here's the method I find fastest and most "boneless".

I refer to this method of filleting as "halfing". I use this style for crappie/panfish, trout, scup, blackfish, small stripers and bluefish. For all these species except crappie/panfish and scup there is a extra step of removing the ribs & centercutting which WILL NOT be shown here.

"Halfing" is just that. Cutting the fish in half from head to tail including cutting right through the rib bones. I find it to be the "quickest" method to work through a mess of smaller fish. I'll do my best to explain this method in detail with pictures from here.


Here's the fish we caught today, I gave them a good rinse to remove the heavy slime and ease handling


Make the 1st cut across the body down to the backbone


Cut from head to tail through ribs following the backbone


Repeat on the second side of the fish


Now go ahead and half all of your fish


Here's the waste bucket full of halfed fish


Now that the hard work is done you can clean your board and give all the half fish a quick rinse to remove all the extra gunk and slim. Sharpen your knife and get ready to start skin cutting.

Enter the fillet knife on a slight angle so you get under the rib section a ways. Once your down to the skin, just turn your blade out toward the back and remove the slab fillet.




I don't go crazy on the next step trying to save ever little bit of meat. It's just not worth it. I take the little nugget between the end of the ribs and the tail and toss the rest.



This is what you will yield from each fish


Once I'm done filleting all the fish I place them on this table and again rinse them to remove scales and any leftover gunk. I then let them drain well.


Finally I bring them in the house and lay them out on paper towels to completely drain. I also put a layer of towels on top and press down firmly to dry them off.


This bunch of fish took me 45mins to complete and the total yield was 7.6 pounds of crappie fillets!!!!

[IrishAyes]

I do mine the same way. The only thing I do different for seabass is...after skinning I will cut a v-notch down the center of the fillet to remove two small bones that are typically there. (I'm thinking maybe this is the part you said you were leaving out for now.) Bone free fillets every time.

Excellent illustrations. Thanks Capt. 

[T-Man]

Bingo IA...

One the other fish I carve out the ribs and then v-notch or center cut the finished fillets.

[Hotrod]

SWEET!! 

I think that's how I watched CApt. Jerry do blackfish

[Luna Sea 5]

very nice post...