Wildlife Watching Wednesday: Rockbass - The Kids' Favorite
By: Tom Berg
The lowly rockbass is the first fish caught by many kids. These members of the sunfish family are aggressive and will eagerly take most small baits presented to them. That makes them the perfect target for young anglers, and since they are found near the shoreline rocks of most Midwestern lakes and streams, they are available to a lot of people.
Rockbass are also called goggle-eyes and redeye bass. They are not large fish, usually measuring 7-10 inches long. They have a mottled yellowish-brown coloration and distinct rows of black spots. Their eye is a bright red or orange color that is hard to forget. They also have six sharp spines in their anal fin, while other sunfish have only three anal fin spines.
Since they have a large mouth, they have no trouble eating large prey, including other fish nearly as large as themselves! They also eat worms, crayfish, insects, minnows and just about any other aquatic creature they can fit in their mouths. Kids catch plenty of rockbass on a simple worm dangled beneath a bobber in the shallows.
Most anglers are happy to harvest a few rockbass for the table, and their fillets are very tasty. They are best when cooked fresh, but they freeze well, too. Rockbass are extremely common and in most places there is no minimum size limit for them. If you would like to eat them, some states have a very liberal bag limit (like 25 rockbass per day) and other states have no limit at all!
Rockbass are known to be hosts of certain aquatic parasites, especially tiny “black spot” flatworms and small “yellow grub” flukes. These common parasites might appear on the outer skin or fins of the fish, and they are sometimes embedded in the flesh when you fillet the fish. For this reason, some people refuse to eat rockbass. There is no danger, though, since, both of these parasites are completely harmless to humans when you cook the fish.
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