Fish I Would Never Eat!

[FlyBum]

I'm not sure what it is, but I have a hard time being motivated about fishing for fish I would never eat. This is one reason so far I've never fished for Carp for instance.

Its not like I eat a lot of the fish I catch either unless I'm fishing in the Salt then my whole purpose if fishing to eat. I fish for trout nine times out out ten though and I release them I'd guess 98% of the time unless they are planters and the truth is I typically try to get away from planters.

I do like to fish for shad and I'd never eat them and if it wasn't for the fact that they run up the American River in Sacramento I wouldn't fish for them, even then I only do that once or twice per season.

What got me to thinking about this was the bone fish video in another thread. I love watching fishing videos I especially enjoy watching Tarpon Fishing videos, but I'd never spend money it takes to do it.

For me there is a reward in occassionally keeping and eating what I catch, not to mention I love eating fish.

Is anyone else like this?:icon_lol:

 

[cpowell]

I think there is a bit of instinct left in us and that primal instinct makes us feel satisfied when we eat something we have caught. We are hunter gathering peoples.

I will reserve eating a carp for the time when there is no food left and I have to go catch it to survive..I bet it tastes a lot better that way too.

I like your point about not targeting fish I would never eat. I have pondered on this topic many times in the past.

Is it just a filter?

 

[troutdoorsman]

I thought that way about Carp that I wouldn't fish for it because it was a gross "bottom feeder" but after hearing the fight stories and seeing my brother hook some big ones I have decided that just because I won't eat it doesn't mean I won't fish for it. They are great fighters just like bonefish and it also gives me more opportunities to fish in other places when the river is blown out.

 

[FlyBum]

They are great fighters just like bonefish and it also gives me more opportunities to fish in other places when the river is blown out.

I understand that they are sometimes referred to in fun as Golden Bonefish. The same way with Shad which I fish for 1-2 times per season and their nick name is Poor Man's Bonefish. When we get the bigger shad in the river on years after there has been lots of rain those babies take you to the backing and cause lots of bloody knucles.

 

[Ian Mann 4]

I watched a British cooking show with Hugh Fernley Whittingstall (sp?). He used to have a show where he travelled around Britain in an old Land Rover and foraged off the land. He then graduated to a small freehold where he tried to be self sustaining.

One show I remember, he caught a carp in a local lake and built some contraption to keep it in clear fresh water for a few days. After that, he cooked it up along with sea bass and served it to a bunch of guests...they gobbled it up and afterwards he revealed what he had done. They were unable to distinguish which was carp.

Asians also consider carp a delicacy. Don't know the species differences though.

I may be going to Oahu for a bit and heard that bonefish aren't great to eat because of all the bones. Supposedly the locals scarf them up though.

 

[Shane Stroud]

Speaking as a redneck who will eat nearly anything, I can tell you that carp are edible. And they can be prepared in such a manner as to make them taste as good as any other fish. You just have to clean them properly. Yes, the bones are a pain, but if you're dealing with a fish that weighs 30 pounds or more, there's plenty of meat left, even after cutting around the impressive skeletal structure of a carp. If you need to know how, Youtube is the answer.

Perhaps the most significant impediment to taste is the mud vein. A more research on Youtube and a tiny bit of effort with the fillet knife will take care of that.

That takes care of carp. Sadly, I have never found a way to make bullhead catfish taste good. But that doesn't mean I haven't eaten them. I just had to use lots of tartar sauce.

 

[FlyBum]

Just the thought of eating carp give me the hebejebes I would likely need someone to pull same joke on me as the English mentioned above did with the Sea Bass. After that my thinking would likely change if I didn't lose my meal after being told.

I love Catfish, but agree with you on the bullheads.

I know Asians who steam shad and eat it, but all those bones just like the bonefish I'm sure, would make it too much work for me if I wasn't between eaten in and starving.

 

[merkin_muffley]

I wouldn't eat the local sturgeon, not so much because of their palatability but because an organism which has spent 30-60 years sucking PCB's and heavy metals from the bottom of a river can't be good for you.

 

[FlyBum]

I wouldn't eat the local sturgeon, not so much because of their palatability but because an organism which has spent 30-60 years sucking PCB's and heavy metals from the bottom of a river can't be good for you.

Sturgeon is fantastic I love eating sturgeon. However, the rivers and lakes around Sacramento and actually a lot of the NorCal Coastal rivers and lakes are so full of mercury that I very seldom eat any fish caught out of them.

When I'm in the mood for catfish frankly I go to a local catfish farm and catch a couple. Come to think of it they have sturgeon there too, I've never thought of catching one at the farm, but since they carge by the pound that would be an expensive proposition.

 

[Vans]

I used to spend some days with my grandpa sitting on his dock fishing for carp in the Tualatin river. We used corn and man we caught some huge carp. They would double a trout rod over. Grandpas cats were well fed.

 

[sandfly]

I like fishing for shad, and have tried eating them ONCE, only once never again.. Carp on the other hand have a nice flavor if done right, along with fish like eels.

 

[Rip Tide]

In the town where I grew up, shad was an important cash crop. Some of my high school friends drift-net fished for them commercially.
Numbers are down now but locally there are still local families of expert shad boners and the shad roe is a delicately. Down river, an annual planked shad festival is a big deal.

Every season I catch a couple of these babies. Sea robins kinda freak me out

 

[Ard]

As for eating a fresh stocked trout; I tried that once. I have never eaten any of the sludge that is in the bottom of a concrete run at a fish hatchery but the stock trout I ate were close enough for me. Think about this a moment OK? Thousands of fish, fish that eat and then poop in that run, now you're getting the picture. I could never get the people who went fishing in stocked Pennsylvania waters and kept the fish on opening day.

I used to work with guys who kept stockers by the hundred. Back then the limit was 8 / day and most of these guys were poachers to boot. I would overhear them exchanging recipes for "Good Trout Cooking" most had to do with putting bacon in or on the fish while baking or broiling them. I always wondered why a person would go to such trouble to make something that tasted pretty much like the muck on the creek bottom taste like bacon. The first Trout I ever ate that tasted good was taken from a fork of a Montana River that shall be unnamed but they were Brook Trout and they were good to eat. The year was 1980 and there were so many fish I had no guilt in taking a few for my camp. I also ate a wild brown trout once that had managed to get my dry fly hooked in his gills and was nearly bleed to death when I brought him in. This too was a good fish to eat.

I found the King Salmon that return to the rivers emptying to Lake Ontario to taste like muck from the bottom of the lake also. I even tried smoking them but could not eradicate the foul aftertaste of them and so I only ever kept 2 of them. Those Steelhead from Lake Erie tasted as good as store bought salmon and I used to keep some of them but there is a Health Advisory on eating too much of that so.............

Then there is Alaska Salmon, now you're talking. Other than the salmon I harvest I don't keep any fish I catch unless I'm camped in the Bush and a fish seems to make sense. The Grayling and char here are good when fried on a fire. All told when it comes to the passion for Trout I am 99.99% C&R and I'm OK with that.

Ard

 

[Fly2Fish]

I'm with Fly Bum. Can't fish for what to me is inedible fish, like carp. Not much for shad either, but I do like eels (although I don't flyfish for them). I guess "edible" is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[madjoni]

Here is your europian cuisine insider info
trout is 10 euros per kilo
eel is 14 euros per kilo
smoked carp is 20euros per kilo
This tell you something?:wiggle:

 

[FlyBum]

Here is your europian cuisine insider info
trout is 10 euros per kilo
eel is 14 euros per kilo
smoked carp is 20euros per kilo
This tell you something?:wiggle:

Yes it tells me Europeans are nuts. JK

I just couldn't pass that up! I sincerely I don't think that.

 

[ant]

I have yet to try it, but I've always thought that carp might work if you took out the mud vein and then threw it in a stew or chowder.(The carp meat, not the mud vein.) Something to give it a better taste, since I've heard that they're pretty tasteless.

 

[milt spawn]

Maybe I should move to Europe and start carp farmin'!!!$$$ milt.

 

[JoJer]

I can't see myself eating carp. Might be fun to fly fish for, but the ych factor is too ingrained in me to try to eat one.
Lots of people here class whitefish with carp and suckers, but whitefish are good smoked. I've probably kept and eaten more whitefish in the past few years than trout.
Lots of folks denigrate bottom feeding fish, but who can say no to crabs and lobster?

 

[ChrisinselwynNZ]

Here is your europian cuisine insider info
trout is 10 euros per kilo
eel is 14 euros per kilo
smoked carp is 20euros per kilo
This tell you something?:wiggle:

I have yet to try it, but I've always thought that carp might work if you took out the mud vein and then threw it in a stew or chowder.(The carp meat, not the mud vein.) Something to give it a better taste, since I've heard that they're pretty tasteless.

Ant the trick too carp is to brine (even add brown sugar too the brine as much as 50/50 unless you get slime on them when done then reduce the sugar) them for a few days (gets red of the excess moisture and firms the fish flesh to make them edible) leave them for a day for the salt to stabilise then smoke them or fry them from what I hear they are prity good (and this was coming from someone in the states in florida)

I would eat any perch I can get they are great after geting one by accident (while after trout) I was upset the fight scared the trout off and it was gut hooked (I wanted my fly back) so I took it home and expected some inedable horror but was plesently suprised and would eat it over trout anyday!

while sea fishing I do it for food I wont eat baracouda, or red cod as most of the ones I have got before have had worms in the flesh (I dont even look now they go strait back). The best ones too get are Kahawai (they fight real hard and can be fun on a fly rod), trumpeter, blue cod, and butter fish

Salmon here are fairly bland for land locked I have yet to get one from the sea and hear they are better eating

Eel, I have eaten it and would again, around where I fish there is a huge export (for europe) of smoked eel. in the evening the river bed is covered with them, there are even eels out during the day sometimes (this is another one you need to dry abit and remove the kidney or they will taste like s#*t)

Trout, I prefur to take a fish under 5lb (between 1lb and 5lb as large fish are where the good genes are and will produce better fry for future seasons) unless it wont survive.the most I have taken in one season is 5 fish, and in 1 day 1 fish. The limit bag where I fish is 2 per day and in some waters there is a maximum length to protect the best fish.

Chris