It’s almost time for the bream to bite! I’ve always heard the first full moon in May is one of the peak times for a feeding frenzy. I haven’t been fishing yet this spring but I feel a wet line coming soon…VERY soon! 
Bream Time
Yep that is about the time. We call them “Shell Crackers, bluegill, and red ears”…lots of folks call them bream.
About as good as eating as you can find among all the fish in my mind…that is if you can catch them big enough. I will take my son out maybe 5 times a year on the boat and we will hit their favorite spawning places…when we find them It’s 8"-11" ones on every cast…it’s nothing for me to bring home 60 at a time and filet them up…best of all is the enjoyment my son gets in catching a fish on every cast!
When I was a teen I used to fish quite a bit. My favorites were bluegill and crappie. They are a ton of fun and like you said, they taste about as good as anything you can catch. For some reason I was thinking about crappie fishing in Kentucky Lake when I was trying to go to sleep the other night. There was a type of red and white jig that worked like crazy if you had real light line there, but I never had much luck with that jig anywhere else. Anyway, thumbs up for bream, bluegill, shellcrackers, sunfish (although those were slightly different) or whatever else you want to call them.
It’s also getting close to the time for white bass to run in KY. There was a little place we used to go in the headwaters of a lake near my hometown (Herrington Lake) and it was on some guy’s farm who I never met. It was just kind of a community access point and I guess the owners didn’t care. There would sometimes be 30 or 40 people out there fishing at night. We used to limit out on those (I think it was 60) pretty quick when we hit the right nights. Good memories!
I had to turn down an offer to go bass fishing at the very private Bienville Plantation this morning. I’ve been kicking myself all day.
— Begin quote from "Oldhat"
About as good as eating as you can find among all the fish in my mind…that is if you can catch them big enough. I will take my son out maybe 5 times a year on the boat and we will hit their favorite spawning places…when we find them It’s 8"-11" ones on every cast…it’s nothing for me to bring home 60 at a time and filet them up…best of all is the enjoyment my son gets in catching a fish on every cast!
— End quote
Yep, they are good eats for sure. If you’re finding 8-11" ones then you hit the gold mine! Not much meat on most of the ones we catch. We go to my father in law’s lake/pond and I think it’s overstocked with 'em and they don’t grow big enough. If they’re too small to filet, the meaty part down each side of their backbone is my favorite.
— Begin quote from "mswhat"
If you’re finding 8-11" ones then you hit the gold mine!
— End quote
When I used to go fishing, there were two different “kinds” of blue gill. One was lighter tan colored and would quite often get nicely sized for filleting (consistently longer than my hand). The other were darker, more greenish color, and they were typically smaller but thicker. At the ponds where we caught those, ones big enough to filet were quite rare. Most places had one kind or the other. I am not sure if they were different species, variations, or just different growth phases of the same exact thing.
Yep various types of Bream and Bluegill. These are the “red ear” variety known as “Shell Crackers” and grow pretty damn big around these parts…I think our state record in TN is around 4 lbs. Same goes for Crappie around here, our state records for both (black and white) is around 5lbs! It’s nothing for me to catch 17" crappie while throwing a crankbait for bass.
I’d say the majority of shell crackers me and my son catch are at the 8.5 - 9.5 inch size. I pretty much filet out that strip that MSwhat mentioned along the spine and don’t mess much with trying to get the belly meat…dip them in eggs and milk then right into regular flour and then toss them into a hot frying pan of bacon grease and in 3 minutes or so you get a really great tasting distinct fish that is about as good as it gets…I could eat them every day!
You are making me hungry. You filet them just the way I used to. I typically did two fish per person. The best fish I ever had was walleye. Man that’s some good stuff!
— Begin quote from "mreisz"
You are making me hungry. You filet them just the way I used to. I typically did two fish per person. The best fish I ever had was walleye. Man that’s some good stuff!
— End quote
Eating this right now! It is good also!
That beats my dinner 
Yep the bream are bitin’ good here. Took my Dad out on the Arkansas River last week and caught a limit on three different beds we stumbled across. I fish for crappie and bass most of the time but love to bust out a tube of crickets every now and then. Some folks agree and some don’t, but I’d actually rather eat a big bream on the bone than I would a crappie fillet.
Yeah Oldhat you’re right about the Red ears. I’ve caught some around here that were as big as a slab crappie. Most of us in these parts call them Red ears or GI bream (government improved).
— Begin quote from "Oldhat"
— Begin quote from "mreisz"
You are making me hungry. You filet them just the way I used to. I typically did two fish per person. The best fish I ever had was walleye. Man that’s some good stuff!
— End quote
Eating this right now! It is good also!
— End quote
now you have went and done it; as bad as I feel I am getting the fishing fever and will have to go wet a line somewhere . Need to sit on the bank for awhile any how .