Anyone ever fish for eelpout intentionaly? 3rd yr fishing LOW and have never caught one yet, thought I might try this year for fun.

Yes, it can be fun and they are good to eat. After the walleyes quit bitting we just put down the rattle reels with a minnow close to the bottom.

HOW DO YOU FIX IT?

Easiest if it's cold and you can lay them outside to semi- freeze. Check on them occasionally and try to get them straight (good luck).
Take a knife and a pair of pliers, score the skin behind the gill, along the spine, and again along the rib line on both sides then peel the skin back. fillet out the back meat, if
conditions are right you can rip it out with the pliers with maybe a little knife work as you go. Practice helps.

We dip some water out and boil it. Drop 1-2" chuncks into boiling water and have some butter melting in another pan with a bit of garlic (fresh is nice but powder works). Don't over-cook pout, 5 or 6 minute is good to maintain lobster-like quality. If it floats, get it out.

Drain water and put pout in butter, pass around and dip pout out with Ritz or similar cracker. SOOOO GOOD!

We have never really targeted pout but seem to catch more some times and places than others. Still baits on bobbers more likely but have caught them jigging to. Even caught one suspended about 10' up. Thought I had a big eye until the "throb" started.

Years ago we'd catch big pout through the ice pretty regularly. We'd toss em' on the ice, freeze em' up and use em' for hockey sticks.

Find a softball sized chunk of ice, make a couple goals, and you've got yourself a rousing game of "Burbot Ball".

Since the big pout' eating craze began I've managed to attempt to eat one (1)! My feeling is they are like lobster, if you think artificial crab is like real, fresh crab.

Maybe I over-cooked my pout', but I thought I was chewing on the sole of my tennis shoe.

And to be completely truthful, I absolutely love Lutefisk, but eelpout just didn't fire my engines.

If you wanna catch em' just waste one line on a dead stick with a gob of minnows on a hook suspended about 2 inches off the bottom, especially right at dusk. I wonder if the walleyes don't stop feeding cause the pout start cruising.

On a side note, my son caught an old dinosaur of a pout on the lake about 4 weeks ago. I'd guess the fish was pushing 16-17 pounds. Really lovely coloration. For the first time in my life, I caught a baby pout in the river. It was around 10 inches long. Never seen one that small.

I'll probably give them another try this winter. If there is a way to make them taste good I'm certainly willing to give it a try. Otherwise it seems an awful waste of a fish that makes such a tangled mess of all your lines.

We tried for pout when we had a few to many and put the lines to the bottom. Tried to catch them but no luck.

I posted a similiar thing last year. This may help: http://www.fishingminnesota.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1197370/1

Got to be in the mud. White jig with alot o meat. Last year was down on the Backstrapn ealpout but this year?

We target them in early march at the Angle, can be really great after dark. Best evening was 35 in 4 hours!!

catching pout is fun.

Yeah, it is. Especially when it is cold as heck and they try wrapping themselves around your arm. Nothing like a frozen arm!

this would be an awesome youtube video if somoen could put it together i have never made it but wouldnt mind trying it.

lol that is very funny when they do that,then they start to burp at you rofl.nothin like tring to catch the rattle wheel at 3 am and find out its a huge pout lol

We used to hate pout. Then our group started throwing in $20 per man ($240). Half goes to the biggest gamefish the other half to the biggest pout. Let's just say that the minnows started getting set lower after that. Seriously, that made the difference for us and now pout fishing is a blast.

filleting them and fry em up with your walleyes is good to.