Blue gills in my pond, any good?

[The Count]

My pond has a whole bunch of critters but only one type of fish a can see, blue gills. In the summer I feed them bread every day. Are those actually good eatin? Anything to be aware of, like like high heavy metal levels?

[rcairflr]

I don't know about the metal level, but Blue Gills are a great pan fry fish.

[The Count]

Originally Posted by rcairflr

I don't know about the metal level, but Blue Gills are a great pan fry fish.

Lightly flour the whole fish or do you have to take the guts/head out?

[rcairflr]

gut and dehead. You will also need to fillet or descale.

[ghrit]

Originally Posted by rcairflr

gut and dehead. You will also need to fillet or descale.

Yep, pan fry hot in butter for a short time. Hard to beat for a fresh water fish.

[GunNut89]

awesome tasting fish.

[H-D]

good taste , lots of bones

[76Highboy]

"Your pond" you say. Wow, when SHTF you'll be kickin back fishing and surviving. Way awesome. Now if you can just catch a pizza out of there you'll have it made.

[Zane71464]

Good eating fish, they are. Like H-D said, alot of bones...alot of "fine" bones so eat
cautiously! My brother back when we were kids always out fishi'n, 'bout got choaked
to death, or we thought he was.

[Zhurh]

When I lived back east, I'd go ice fishin every evening after work, fill up a couple 5 gal buckets. Dump out on newspaper, filet quick and freeze; little 2 inch wide filets 4 inches long; no bones that way; bread & fry up. Nothing better but walleye & halibut.

[Frogtop]

Remove scales, de-head and gut or, if large enough, fillet removing skin. Drop in a bag of corn meal (not corn meal mix) with salt and pepper added (also cayenne if you want) shake and ease into pan of hot oil (325 - 350) until brown. Yum! Tune in next week for how to make hushpuppies. This works for all fresh water fish excluding trout.

[hunter29180]

Originally Posted by The Count

Anything to be aware of, like like high heavy metal levels?

if you are worried about metal content, have your pond water tested at the county extension office..cost varies 25-50 i think....if water test high then everythink in pond will be the same level. also good way to see what you would need to filter and clesn water for drinking..if it should become nessary..

[76Highboy]

Originally Posted by hunter29180

if you are worried about metal content, have your pond water tested at the county extension office..cost varies 25-50 i think....if water test high then everythink in pond will be the same level. also good way to see what you would need to filter and clesn water for drinking..if it should become nessary..

That is great advice.

[Zane71464]

Originally Posted by hunter29180

if you are worried about metal content, have your pond water tested at the county extension office..cost varies 25-50 i think....if water test high then everythink in pond will be the same level. also good way to see what you would need to filter and clesn water for drinking..if it should become nessary..

Look over my lack of knowledge here on the subject, but I was always under
the impression that a person always had to worry about fish taken from
rivers and streams with runoff from factory/plants, farm field sparying and
etc..? I never thought that about private ponds.

Where does the metal content in ponds, say private land ponds, come from?

[tcox4freedom]

Originally Posted by Zane71464

Look over my lack of knowledge here on the subject, but I was always under
the impression that a person always had to worry about fish taken from
rivers and streams with runoff from factory/plants, farm field sparying and
etc..? I never thought that about private ponds.

Where does the metal content in ponds, say private land ponds, come from?

In my neck of the woods, the soil has a naturally high "iron" content. Personally, I don't see any problem with most naturally occurring "metals" in H2o.

My primary concern about metals would "mercury" and maybe "lead". But, my BIGGEST concern would be chemicals from area agriculture/horticulture practices. (This is also where "dangerously" high content of metals is most likely to stem from.)

-

[Zhurh]

We live in a traditional gold mining district in Alaska. I haven't heard a person even talk about minerals in well water, and we got them in there too, ha ha. No increased cancer rates, nobody getting sick, everybody happy enough with the water they drink. I think people have way more to worry about chemicals & pollution that makes it into the ground water from massive human numbers populating every sq acre of the land over most of the USA.

Once I had a friend from back east start telling me about all the pollution from the oil industry up on our North Slope, in the dirt & ground everywhere. I asked him if he had ever been up there, as I had; of course he said no, but knew for sure about the dangers that existed. I tried explaining to him that the dirt in his back yard was way more polluted than any of the ground on the North Slope;;; to no avail of course.

I'd be eatin all those 10 inch bluegrills.

[whirley]

Good bluegill article in June 2012 Fur-Fish-Game. Bluegills multiply like dandelion seeds. Author suggest they should be fished heavily, BUT return the very large bluegills back as breeders. Bluegills can grow as large as two pounds, the size of a dinner plate. Excellent eating. Keepers will measure 6 inches or more. Harvest them heavily, makes room for others to grow. They have small mouths, use small hooks for more success.

[carver]

My pond is not fed by anything other than rain water. It is full of blue gills, and chanel cat. Blue gills have no more bones in them than White Perch, or Bass, they all belong to the same family. Get some floating fish food, and feed them! They are great to eat! If they are large enough, you can fillet them, or scale them, cut off the head, and gut them. Down here in the South, we eat a lot of bream, some folks keep the little ones too. They just gut them, scale them, and fry them whole! The little ones bones will become crisp, and they eat the fish, bones, and all! I use corn meal on mine, first apply a little mixture of mustard, and LA hot sause (mixed), then roll them in the seasoned corn meal. The wet mixture helps the corn meal to stick. You won't taste the mustard, or the hot sause, they add a small amount of flavor. If you are trully worried about the fish being poluted, then you can buy Test Kits on line: http://www.pondexperts.ca/test_kits.htm

[carver]

"Anything to be aware of, like like high heavy metal levels"?

If your pond is clean, heavy metals should not be a problem. I used to work at a coal fired electric plant, some guys that work for a lab would come around about every week, and take samples of the fish to measure heavy metals. Talking to them I was told that most of our public lakes, streams, and rivers are polouted with mostly mercury. I was told that a steady diet of fish from almost any public waters is not a good idea, but that once a week would not get enough mercury into you system to do any harm. Therefore, I do catch, and eat fish from my pond, and from public waters. I just don't eat a heavy diet of any of them. I do the same with sea food too.

[yetiman]

Super fun to catch on a fly rod or super light spinning reel.

[blind bud]

they are great to fry mux uo some corn meal add weaeons ,pick a heasdof cabbage out of garden makr up a boel of cole slaw , dig up a couple of onions an dig some potatoes for french rries ,
they are fun to catch on a fly rod and rhe small lu\ight tackle rigs with a bettle spin and crickrt .
wher do you live my wife and i lovr to fish ? she is a great cook ..
blind bud

[Zane71464]

Originally Posted by tcox4freedom

In my neck of the woods, the soil has a naturally high "iron" content. Personally, I don't see any problem with most naturally occurring "metals" in H2o.

My primary concern about metals would "mercury" and maybe "lead". But, my BIGGEST concern would be chemicals from area agriculture/horticulture practices. (This is also where "dangerously" high content of metals is most likely to stem from.)

-

That's what I was thinking as well. We have alot of iron content around here
and used to be in the water 'wells" as well before it was to unsafe to drink
due to pollution.
Mercury and PCB's is taking over all the river and run off's I do think.

[flyingAMT]

All these comments seem spot on to me. All I would add is that blue gill make wonderful food for larger species like channel cats and bass. Go catch a few catfish and largemouth at your local lake or buy some to stock in your pond for some variety, crappie are a nice addition too. I always fillet my fish. It takes a little more time, and some of the meat is wasted, but I don't have to worry about the bones so much. A simple water test is all that should be needed to determine if you have any harmful levels of pollutants or heavy metals in your water and the fish that swim in it. Generally speaking though, if your not living by a coal fired power plant or near a huge agricultural area, then you're probably okay.

[Frogtop]

I use spring water for my mountain cabin and have tried to get the water tested. Neither TN nor VA will test surface water. I looked at having it done by a private lab and the estimate for coliforms and heavy metals was around $400. At that point I didn't ask about parasites. You are cooking the fish so don't worry about the microbes, just don't drink the water and wash your hands after handling the fish. As has been previously stated, limit you consumption to once a week and the heavy metals shouldn't be a problem.

[langenc]

Originally Posted by Zhurh

We live in a traditional gold mining district in Alaska. I haven't heard a person even talk about minerals in well water, and we got them in there too, ha ha. No increased cancer rates, nobody getting sick, everybody happy enough with the water they drink. I think people have way more to worry about chemicals & pollution that makes it into the ground water from massive human numbers populating every sq acre of the land over most of the USA.

Once I had a friend from back east start telling me about all the pollution from the oil industry up on our North Slope, in the dirt & ground everywhere. I asked him if he had ever been up there, as I had; of course he said no, but knew for sure about the dangers that existed. I tried explaining to him that the dirt in his back yard was way more polluted than any of the ground on the North Slope;;; to no avail of course.

I'd be eatin all those 10 inch bluegrills.

Your friend is a typical yahoo that knows all about oil drilling and pipelines.
ANWAR is a very SMALL area of Alaska. When the TV shows it, it is always beautiful mountains an streams. There are NO mountains within 100s of miles of ANWAR. Just seacoast and not more than 100 or so sq miles.

One man rule on pipelines and too many other things.