We were fishing off the dock at High Rock Lake in NC where my daughter and son-in-law have a new home. The wind was blowing and the waves from the jet skis were crashing against the bank, stirring up the mud and the fish were biting. We caught catfish up to 5-pounds, but we also caught some huge redear sunfish, sometimes called shellcrackers. My daughter, Angelin, caught a monster, weighing maybe a pound and a half and stretching to 12-inches. It was the biggest one I have ever personally seen.
Shellcrackers are similar to bluegills except for coloration. Redears have an orange coloration on their fins and have faint vertical bars on their sides. They are generally a little lighter in color than bluegills and they run larger on average.
Their favorite food is escargot – snails.
Shellcrackers have thick teeth inside their mouths that allow them to crack a snail’s hard shell and they are even capable of opening the shells of small clams – thus the name shellcracker. The colorful sunfish tend to congregate in schools so where you find one there will be others. We fried our shellcrackers that very night and one fish easily fed one person. They were huge – and delicious.
