The stuff is quite edible, it’s just a pain in the wazoo to prepare.
You cant fillet it.
Ive had it smoked and chunked like tuna. It was good.
Ooops.. you can fillet it.
Looks like the mud vein is the problem to preparation.
Smoked....excellent, indeed!
Prepare it like they do at this restaurant in Omaha. They make a series of cross hatched cuts straight to the backbone, it makes the tiny peripheral bones edible when breaded and fried. Of course the flavor part is a different story but I used to put mine in a clean kiddie swimming pool and feed them corn for a couple of weeks and then eat them, makes them almost neutral in flavor.