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Episode-1937- Fishing For Food, Underrated Fish and How to Cook Them

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Some See “Trash Fish” but I See Dinner

A friend and I have been talking about fishing a lot lately, it is still cold, the winds are stupid this time of year, but man I have the bug.  It is likely that I will be investing in a boat in March, and will be hitting some of the bigger lakes in the are.

I really do love simply bank fishing and shore fishing though.  Something about the simplicity, park the car or truck, a short walk with your gear and a cooler with a few beers and hopefully some stuff worth frying up by day’s end.   With surf fishing it is a long drive but the experience is even better, standing up to your waste while schools of fish and the occasional shark swim by, (no I am not kidding) with the anticipation of never knowing what you might catch next.

Fishing has become a massive industry even at the “recreational level”, I know people with 55,000 dollar “bass boats” filled up with 15,000 dollars worth of gear.  (once again not kidding) These people fish constantly and never keep a fish, yet refer to fish like Sand Bass and Bullheads as “trash fish”.

I don’t know, perhaps it was growing up without a lot but a love for the outdoors that keeps me grounded.  I have been off shore for Marlin, in the Florida bays catching Snook longer than my leg, on Gatun Lake in Panama after massive Peacock bass and deep into the mountains for brook trout that had never likely seen a hook in their lives.  There is more, I have quite literally at times been an “adventurer fisherman”.

Yet I still enjoy bouncing slabs for sand bass or just sitting at a small stock pond catching small bullhead catfish or fishing a back water creek for various perch/brim/sunfish.  I also enjoy standing in the surf and catching whiting, hard heads and gaftops.  And in many ways it is these fish I most enjoy eating.

They are small, tasty, fast to clean, they have a great size to yield ratio and you literally can’t harm their populations with hook and line.  Today we talk about this type of fishing and the food value it brings to your home.

Join Me Today To Discuss…

  • Basic bank and surf gear for these types of fish
  • Finding places to fish, check right under your nose
  • How do you actually “target a species”
    • Habits
    • Patterns
    • Seasons
    • Diet
  • Some of my favorite species to target
    • Fresh Water
      • Bullhead Cats
      • Channel Cats
      • Fresh Water Drum
      • White Bass
      • Bluegill/Sunfish/Perch/Brim/etc
      • Bowfin – I don’t eat these but fun to catch
    • Salt Water
      • Gaftop and Hardhead Catfish
      • Whiting
      • Sand Trout
      • Jack Crevalle
      • Small Sharks (Blacktips)
      • Croaker
      • Bluefish
  • Some ways to prepare some of these fish
    • Pan Fried “shucked catfish”
    • Grilled Channel Cat Steaks
    • White Bass on the Half Shell
    • Yellow Bass Chowder – you can use any fish
    • Whiting Cerviche – you can do this with any salt water fish
    • Grilled Shark or Jack Fish
  • Nothing will kill you (cooked) so try everything

Resources for today’s show…

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Comments

Episode-1937- Fishing For Food, Underrated Fish and How to Cook Them — 13 Comments

  1. I see more and kayak fishing around here. Picking one up in a few weeks. Would be nice to get farther out in the surf or when it’s too bad try out the bay side. Marshy area on the bay side would be great with a kayak.

  2. Hello Jack,

    With the fish recipe, was this the Hawaiian “red clay salt” you recommended a while back, or rock salt?

    Thanks for all you do.

    Grog

    • With this I would use any salt and if I wanted some of the red do that at the end, adds a bit of crunch and flavor. I tend to use the red salt right at plating.

  3. Meat is meat in my book, raw meat, cooked meat, “trash” meat, I’d eat it all if need be, and I am sure everyone else would too, so…

  4. Not trying to defend IBM working with the Nazis, just another interesting counter point, only a few years later, International Business Machines (IBM), would be manufacturing American M1 carbines for the war effort.

    Henry Ford was an admirer of Adolf Hitler, but also his company manufactured jeeps, gliders, planes, tanks, and other machines for the war, and finding ways to be more efficient and faster in that production over other companies.

    The business practices of companies during the time leading up to and including WW2 are very interesting.

  5. Hey, for what it is worth, George Takei’s last name is pronounced “Teh-kay”, not “Teh-kye”.
    Pronouncing a person’s name correctly matters to me, what can I say? I welcome your eye-rolls…

  6. Love this show. I grew up around all this stuff: hunting, fishing, gardening…Now I have a little one that I need to teach this stuff to. Jack, you do a great job making me think about explaining everything a little better. Cheers

  7. For catfish, if you have a spot that you can access and find every time sink a few scrap pipes

    • Indeed and if you are a boat owner, make sure you sink PVC. You can do this and even make crappie trees, always PVC, then mark with your GPS. Why?

      Well PVC is the same density as water it won’t show on a depth finder, meaning you can create and hide your secret honey holes in plain site.

      Well known trick by crappie guides.

      Bull cats and channels (eatin size anyway) absolutely love about 1-2 foot long pieces of 4 inch and if you hang one they are generally not so big that you break off. You can just pull it in and toss it back.

      Here is a cool way to build underwater trees that you can pull a boat over and fish strait down to. Again they won’t show on sonar and this way you can jig or what have you and you won’t get snagged. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/ShilohRed/Crappie%20fishing/crappiebeds002.jpg

      Now I am giving away some well known secrets here but they are still sort of secrets, meaning most folks don’t know about em.

  8. On scaling fish, try a water hose with the nozzle set on ‘jet’ and spray from tail to head. The scales come right off (on crappie and bream anyway).

  9. I have several old books that list Jack Crevalle as inedible. In light of that, if you and I are the only ones eating it there will be enough for a lifetime.
    But now you have let the kitty out of the burlap. It will now be like chicken wings, selling for 10 times relative value compared to the 70’s. And, so fun to catch! (the Jacks not the chickens)

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