Just my Wife and I. Too much work to give away to ungrateful people!

I have large fish fries with family and friends too Bruce
Gary, I never considered catching and cleaning fish work

Fish fillets and brother inlaws Gary's cowboy fries.

X2....and none of that catfish garbage here, its walleye on the menu at this yankee's place

Brook trout,lake trout,salmon,or white and yellow perch for fillets here.

That all sounds good, too...

Sometimes it's the family that's the work!

They did all the work.I just ate fish fillets and cowboy fries.

Doesn't get better than that, Bruce!

Looks great.

Back in the 1960s, we had big family fish fries. We'd have a couple hundred brook trout ( little guys)....my Grandfather said if trout were big enough to have two eyes, they were big enough to eat. With the little trout, you could eat 15-20 each. Trout were dipped in flour, sat, pepper, and fried t oil in electric skillets. My Grandmother would have three or four big cast iron skillets, frying sliced new potatoes.

If catfish were edible we'd never have to buy meat again. But just can't make it palatable.

We eat a lot of catfish. Tastes fine to me!

Love the blue catfish fillets I catch down to Virginia.Just got to cut all the red out of the fillets.

You folks are making me hungry. Catfish is delicious. I can eat a little smoked carp. Not much, though.

Id welcome any tips for frying catfish.

Granddad lived in the best place ever for fishing, Clearwater, Florida. That's the Pinellas peninsula with the Gulf to the west, Tampa Bay to the east, Withlacoochee river to the north and freshwater lakes and canals everywhere.

Granddad fished three days a week his choice fresh or salt.

One of his fish fries could include boiled shrimp, fried oysters, fried catfish or flounder or seatrout, blue crab. All of swimming less than a day before.

Matter of fact I've lately I've been adding a squeeze of key lime to my sweet tea because his table always had fresh wedges of key limes picked from his tree in the backyard.

But you couldn't take the Alabama plow boy out of him. He always came to the table with a pone of cornbread cooked up in his square cast iron skillet. Always with, "pie are round cornbread are square".

When I lived on the river my fish fries were fried catfish, homemade coleslaw, baked beans, homemade onion rings and fries plus hushpuppies. I always did up a few pork shoulders on the smoker for those that didn't care for fish.

Slice into the meat with the bone like you would crap and batter/fry....
Never eat summer fish...

we do a Sturgeon fry after the winter fishery closes
Salmon I have never fried..

I like a breading of half cornmeal half flour. Season well with salt, black pepper, and a good healthy dash of cayenne. You can add dill and lemon pepper.

You want thicker filets or whole catfish. Smaller and thinner tends to dry out. If muddy tasting an overnight soak in buttermilk will take out any strong flavor.

Dip in buttermilk then dredge in the breading. The trick is to cook it quick in a high smoke point oil like peanut oil. You want it done just to the point that it flakes off the bone easily with a fork.