Mindarie Madness
Headed out of Mindarie about 6am to pull the pots and was greeted with 7-8 boats lining up to come out of the water. Launch lanes were still clear so good job to those coming in, and i assume then heading to work, in not being to impatient.
Pots were fairly loaded with a bag of 24 coming from 3 pots, 6 returned in the last pot. All a nice size with only 1 needing the guage run over it to check and i think these large crays are putting out my normally good eye for size. The small one was at least 3mm over..lol
As the wind was forcast, thanks seabreeze, to drop off we pulled up for a bit of a fish. Dropped the anchor and got some burley going but the bloody wind just seemed to pick up. Whiting were not around and after a little while i had to volinteer to pull the pick. Had the full signs of brekky heading the wrong way, sweats, burps, watery mouth. Bloody wind.
Headed into the shallows and tried again in much calmer conditions. Started the burley again and got into one of the hottest herring sessions that i have seen in a long time. Boated 20 in under 15min with 3 blokes going hard. 2 using bait and having a hard time trying to keep bait on the hooks and myself having the most amount of sucess i have ever had on soft plastics. Loved not having to rebait every cast and the plackies were good for about 4 fish before they were to chewed up.
The snook then came in and scared the herring off so we boated a stack of them to use as cray bait for our next trip out. Those mini barracuda sore the crap out of a pack of plastics pretty quick so i ended up using a little hardbodie until they chewed through the leader.
As whiting was actually the target we moved again to clearer patch and tried again. Only 1 small whiting caught then released but managed 2 nice flathead just under 40cm on the softies before we called it a day.
All in all a great day with the big esky full of crays and the small one stacked with hezzas and cray bait... Oh and then the wind died off a bit just as we were washing the boat down..Lol
Sometimes when the water is quiet, you can hear the fish laughing at you !
Batty
Posts: 348
Date Joined: 24/11/10
Snook
Smoke the snook, better then herring I reckon.......not as good as Crays but.......
Lifes a game but fishing is serious !!!
Madmerv
Posts: 672
Date Joined: 24/01/15
Snook
I've not heard anyone else say a good thing about eating snook.
Being a fish snob myself i gave all the snook and herring to the other blokes and came home with the flathead fillets..Mmmm
I only have one mate with a smoker and he is away at work atm. When he gets back i will keep some of the snook fillets and get him to smoke them to try them out. Give everything a go once.
Sometimes when the water is quiet, you can hear the fish laughing at you !
Hutch
Posts: 2221
Date Joined: 21/04/13
Yeah snook taste awesome.
Yeah snook taste awesome. Fillet and shallow fry in a light batter
Ashen
Posts: 1042
Date Joined: 22/03/13
Very underrated!
IMO, Snook are underrated table fish. One of the best ways to eat them is crispy fried. Simply lightly season with salt & pepper and fry them in very hot oil until golden. Very nice with a few beers!
If you feel adventurous, leave the scales on for extra crunch!
A fish in the hand is worth 10 in the water!
Krusty
Posts: 714
Date Joined: 27/11/15
I agree
Very underated I recon.
A lot of the time it comes down to how the fish are treated when caught and how they are cooked.
If I catch a fish I want to keep to eat, I kill it quickly and straight away, remove the guts and put it on ice so it is as fresh as possible.!
My mouth is watering just thinking about a feed of fresh fish
My fishing spots are so secret........... even the fish don't know where they are !!
Madmerv
Posts: 672
Date Joined: 24/01/15
Snook
Ok so snook can be eaten and are loved by some.
Normally my fish are killed and bled in a bucket of sea water then transfered to an ice slurry to be delt with (gutted etc) at a later time. The snook were just killed and put in a bucket with a bit of ice as they were just for bait.
There is a mention of removing the guts also. Is this needed or just your preference?
I will keep 3-4 next time and bleed them out, into the slurry, to be scaled and filleted later. Let you know what i think.
Sometimes when the water is quiet, you can hear the fish laughing at you !
Krusty
Posts: 714
Date Joined: 27/11/15
Gut them
I like to gut them sooner than later.
Might just be me but I think removing the guts early eliminates the chance of any digestive fluids or toxins in the organs leaching out into the flesh after death.
I just think it maintains the freshness of the flesh better....personal opinion really and just what I have been doing since I started fishing as a kid.
I really don't have any scientific back up but someone here might be able to shed more light on this or not ??
Definitely a good ice slurry with sea water is the best......never use fresh water.
My fishing spots are so secret........... even the fish don't know where they are !!
Comrad
Posts: 109
Date Joined: 17/07/14
If you look at all the
If you look at all the commercial fisheries, they don't gut the fish. The fish lasts longer since there's less chance of rot in the exposed flesh due to cutting. Its the same reason you don't see commercial fish with their throat cut for bleeding, as well. I've been on commercial boats where they would pull the fish up onto a 75mm foam mattress to stop it from flapping around and bruising itself, then they immediately iki-jimi it and then cut a single gill raker and immerse the fish in an ice brine. That draws the blood out quite effectively, and there's as little exposed flesh as possible, from there they are taken out and packed into flaked ice sitting vertically so that any liquids pool at the belly of the fish.
There are exceptions, of course, such as trout, where the gut lining can taint the flesh rather quickly (same for mullet and tailor, but, these are usually sold fairly quickly so its not super relevant), sharks, where the fins are immediately cut off to disperse any ammonia, and the large fish stuff like swordfish, tuna, etc... where they gut them and pack them with ice in all cavities, but that's also to cool the fish down as quickly as possible since they're fairly thick.
ChrisG
Posts: 558
Date Joined: 30/12/11
Leave them whole ungutted
Leave them whole ungutted and put under a balloon or troll them - KILLER Spanish Macky bait
Krusty
Posts: 714
Date Joined: 27/11/15
There you go
Thanks for the info Comrad and if the commercial guys do it that way then there is obviously nothing wrong with that method.
I have just always done it the way I said and guess never really thought about it any further because ......eerrrm ...well there was no need I guess.
I have worked on a commercial fishing boat years ago now however our target species were Trepang and Trochus shells which we dived for.
Any fish we caught was to feed the crew so whenever we had fish on the menue for the night we would catch one, kill it, gut it and give it to the cook who would always make a magic meal..
From sea to plate was usually less than a couple of hours !!
My fishing spots are so secret........... even the fish don't know where they are !!