Posted on 01/06/2017 6:32:46 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo
A northwest Minnesota man now holds the state record for largest eelpout. The DNR says Brent Getzler of Roosevelt caught a 19 pound, 9 ounce eelpout in the Minnesota waters of Lake of the Woods.
The fish was 33 inches long with a belly full of girth at 23 and 7/8 inches. Getzler caught it while fishing for walleye with an orange jigging spoon tipped with a minnow on Dec. 19.
"Brent along with his buddies thought he was battling with a monster walleye and they were recording the three-minute fight. But after realizing it was just a pout they quit filming, "DNR coordinator Mike Kurre said in a statement. "Little did they know the burbot was a state record, until they got it on a scale."
The fish has many names including eelpout, freshwater ling, lawyer and burbot.
The species is celebrated every February in on Leech Lake in Walker, Minnesota with the International Eelpout Festival.
Pout Ping.
Can ya eat it? Is it invasive?
It’s native. Cod family.
“Poor Man’s Lobster”
Some cube it up and batter it and deep fry it.
Not yours truly. If I see one coming up the hole in the ice, I cut the line.
If i saw that i’d use a flamethrower and grenades.
Lay it on an oak board, bake at 300F for one hour.
Remove from oven and throw the fish away, and eat the board.
That’s Hugh!
Same recipe if you shoot a Coot while duck hunting.
Whole lot of good eating...
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/education/angler/pdfs/burbot_recipes.pdf
I’ve tried it. It’s just OK.
Maybe need to find some other spices to hide the blah.
That is why they call them lawyer.
Actually, good eating.
I have friends around Brussels WI who used to get them when they set nets under the ice. They’d catch quite a few.
You have to fry the hell out of them since they are fatty.
When I was a kid in Minnesota, we would occasionally catch them when ice fishing. They got dumped back into the hole. For us, catching a record-sized eel pout would be like catching a record-sized rubber boot.
Yet some of these replying will eat a catfish or a bullhead, which are good eating, but I would take a lawyer over those two.
Espeicially since I am thinking of the name when I am woofing it down.
Ever have one wrap that tail around your arm while trying to pull it out of the hole?
a buddy in MN used to say, when a pout comes up yer hole, it’s time to head for home!
It invades your stomach after you swallow it.
Carp of the size of that eelpout infested the waters, and so did catfish in the dredged barge channel, but large-mouth bass there were dying of old age. Bass are tasty, like flounder. If I caught a bass less than three pounds, I tossed it back in to grow some more.
No carp or catfish for me, and this eelpout looks to be in that class of trash fish. We just hooked the carp with a gaff and left them back to swim away and die. Some peo[le said that soaking carp fillets in milk would get rid of the muddy taste when baked. I tried it once, and it did not work, a waste of time and good milk.
Pan fish were aplenty, and three or four fresh-caught, filleted, skinned, and butter-fried bluegills were a prince's meal matching any aquatic delicacy around the globe.
Next to walleyed pike, that is.
If we caught one of those bastards we'd throw it up on shore.
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