OPTIONAL RECIPE

DREDGE INGREDIENTS:

2 cups plain yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup corn starch
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

DRENCH INGREDIENTS:

2 eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon Louisiana Hot Sauce

Heat oil in fish cooker to about 350 degrees.  Beat 1 egg and mix with 1  can of evaporated milk and 1/2 cup white wine.  Mix all dry ingredients in a large shallow pan.  Dip fish into egg/milk/wine mixture and allow excess to drip off.  Coat fish with the dry ingredients and fry in oil until golden brown.  When fish float to the surface they will usually be done and golden brown.  Allow to remain in the oil until the desired color is obtained.  Remove from oil and drain on paper towels.  Serve with slaw, French fries or The Perfect Baked Potato, hush puppies, sliced sweet onions and a good cold glass of fresh lemon tea.

Note:  You can substitute Autry's House of Seafood Breader if its available in your area for both the dry and wet ingredients.  It makes an excellent coating/breading for seafood.  Place seafood breader in a one gallon zip lock type bag and place several fish in bag and zip close and shake around awhile and fish will be perfectly coated!

One of the best tasting fresh water fish in the Anson County area is the Robin, Red Breast or Bream, whichever name you want to call the Red Breasted sunfish.  This fish is found in the Pee Dee River, Lane's Creek and Richardson Creek to name a few of the places.  The fish likes moving water and you fish for it like you would the Rainbow trout.  Fishing for them with a fly rod using either top water poppers or a nymph like the Golden Ribbed Hare's Ear is totally awesome.  A Red Breast weighting between a half pound to a pound will put up more fight that most 4 to 8 pound bass.

I remember one time while fishing with my bride, "Tweet" in Blewett Falls Lake, Pee Dee River in Anson County on one of our camping trips, while fly rodding for "bream", I had caught so many and so fast that I said, "Lord, please don't let another one strike."  I fished for over an hour and I believe 63 fish were kept.  When I put my fly rod up, the fish were biting just as fast and furious as they were when I first started....

Back in the mid 1970's; Henry, James, & Boyce Adcock and myself and a few others were cat fishing near the Grassy Islands in Pee Dee River.  At mid day we docked at one of the islands that had a board table fashioned between a couple of trees and proceeded to clean our catch.  I believe Henry and myself caught most of the fish in the crowd.  I still have a photograph showing James Adcock sitting on a 5 gallon bucket skinning fish and Henry Adcock is doing the cooking on a small Coleman liquid gas stove.  We were eating the catfish about as fast as Henry was removing them from the hot oil onto a plate.  I was near the plate and reached and got a fish that just came from the hot oil and I let out a war howl.  Henry always reminded me how I did a war dance and howl when I got hold of the hot fish but I didn't turn the fish loose though.

Recipe and comments from Mickey Porter February 13, 1999.

Above pix taken about 5 years ago deep frying some small "biscuit bream" caught on the ole fly rod from Richardson Creek. 

On May 8, 2009 one of my long time friends and hunting buddies Frankie Cranford of Wadesboro, NC brought me a mess of Bluegill fish that he caught while in Florida and had them on ice and they were already dressed aka scaled and cleaned and ready for some deep frying.   I just recently had a "mess" of fresh river caught Crappie from Don Edwards of Hamlet, NC and I certainly will not turn down an offering of fresh caught fish whether they are cleaned or not.  I have caught and cleaned my share of fresh water fish over the past 48 years of some serious fishing since the age of 15 off and on and now rarely go more than a time or two a year fishing with the ole fly rod and do enjoy the tug of a fresh water fish on the fly rod!  Below pixs taken on 05-09-09 of the fish prepared and they were delicious:

The Bluegill were deep fried whole along with some Bluegill filets and were served with marinated slaw, French fries, hush puppies and chilled Chardonnay wine.  They were outstanding.  Below a close up of the plated fish:

Can you say "beautimous" out loud again?   Below a few sequence pixs taken:

I used the House of Autry Medium Hot seafood breader and added a little extra sea salt, freshly ground black peppercorns,  cayenne pepper and used about 1/3 to 1/2 bag of the seafood breader in a one gallon Ziploc freezer bag and the whole fish and filets were coated  evenly.  The wind was blowing fierce outback this afternoon on the deck while deep frying the fish and had a hard time keeping the fish cooker temperature up because the ole fish cooker doesn't have an adequate  flame guard around the burner but the fish came out very well.  I start off with the oil temperature around 350 degrees and when you add the fish it will decrease to around 325 degrees and maybe down to 300 degrees if the wind is not blowing.   Many folks fry their fish at around 375 to 400 degrees but with the "cheaper" vegetable and soy bean oil it works much better at around 350 degrees Fahrenheit, however peanut oil can take the higher temperature.  I only use the fish oil once and a little frugal about using peanut oil and can't really tell a whole lot of difference but the peanut oil is better.    I also added a few pixs of the hush puppies.  The bag of Bluegill filets Frankie brought by contained enough for a couple more fish fries and have them frozen but I think they are much better fresh!