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.
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!
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.