What is a "sail cat"? We always called those cats that layed on the road for a couple of weeks, got flattened, and dried out "sail cats". You could pick them up and sail em. I was serious about bass coming out of warm muddy water tasting better. We have quarry lakes in the county, clear as a bell,40ft deep, and cold. I've had bass out of them that tasted like moss. My nephew caught some out of a big drainage ditch. We ate them they tasted great.

Had a pond like that around here. You caught 150 in about 45 minutes. You have to take a bunch of them out before they can grow to any size at all

I prefer fishing and eating bass over walleye. To me bass have an actual fish taste to them like fish should.

I absolutely eat bass. Fillet, cut into strips, roll in yellow corn meal heavy on black pepper and deep fry in canola oil.

My kids love bass. I like sea bass.

I agree.

I can’t tell a walleye from a bass from a crappie once you goo em up in beer batter and fry em. I quit keeping striped bass hybrids.....they taste really strong.

We have mostly smallmouths in this area of Lake Michigan,we eat everything legal here.Most people look at you funny around here if you do throw them back.Was always told large mouths were no good for the table,couldn't tell you.I have no idea when it became taboo to eat bass,everybody around here always ate them.They had a catch and eat tournament here this summer with bass.I was looking at the comments afterwards and a shocking amount of out of the area anglers were very upset with it because they were eating them,accusing them of depleting the local stock out of the bays.Nonsense.

I can hear my Father,even though he passed awhile ago, say those who judge others, you never sat at that man's table, what right do you have to tell him how to feed his family.

absolutely, I do out of my pond. truth is I think a lot of ponds don't get enough fish taken out of them. but.. if I had a pond like you describe that had 10" bluegill id never bass fish! love big gills!

Grew up eating them and everything else. In the 70s I stopped and released them all. In your circumstance, since the pond is going to be filled and they sound like they are over populated, eat them.

I keep plenty of big bluegill also fish has been my favorite meal my whole life.

My favorite is yellow perch/walleye, then bluegill, then bass, then catfish, then way behind all of those, crappie.

I might use bass as mink bait .....do mink like bass ? I know they like trout....

Would not eat a largemouth, but smallmouths are quite good. I don't like trout or salmon, fun to catch. For me, it's walleyes and yellow perch.Anyone ever have bullheads and pancakes for breakfast, with some johnnycake?

Bullheads in the springtime are good, 3/4 pounders, that is.

typically i do not - don't really care for it.

on occassion, if camping on clear cold body of water, I'll have a few.

The general rule for managing any smaller private lakes or ponds is to kill every bass that weighs around 1 pound. They tend to stock pile at this size and then out compete the other larger fish.

Another approach we used with success is to throw back any fish will a low relative weight. This essentially keeps the ones that are growing well in the breeding population and the ones that are not are removed.

A lot of bass anglers (not all) have no clue about how to manage a bass fishery. Catch and release is great in a fishery that is heavily fished but in waters that don't receive much attention, catch and release is counter productive.

My thoughts are follow the law and it doesn't matter what others think or say. And yes, bass are fine eating. Might not be walleye or perch but they are still good.

mostly small mouth but sure I have eaten large mouth and rock bass also.

in your case with a pond that is going to get drained , stock pile that fish and eat it as often as you can.

I eat them.