To kill invasive species or not? (Page 2): Years/decades ago during a previous life was in Japan. Guys were spending $75 for a piece of poisonous puffer...a beer was 25 cents these are...

Dadeaux Loc: Florida Panhandle

Years/decades ago during a previous life was in Japan. Guys were spending $75 for a piece of poisonous puffer...a beer was 25 cents these are the same guys that waited hours on line when the first McDonald's opened in Tokyo & paid $5 for a big mac...my buddies & I would go to the local greasing chop stick as we called it. Would get a great meal including drinks & a healthy tip all for $2 or so...actually you bought your drinks with you... it was were all the local workers went no seats everyone stood at the counters.
That's also when Filipino stewards ran the shipboard messes. Food was usually good.

Garry Loc: Wellborn, Florida

saw1 wrote:

I know. Some people like it I guess.

Bass, speckled trout, crappie, and a few might be better, but to me carp rank right up there. Trout and salmon will serve as survival food for me. I'll try most any thing once, and after I talked my buddy, in WV, into cooking one up he swore he would only give one up if he had too many for him and his family. He started keeping carp and giving trout away.

saw1 Loc: nor cal Windsor

Garry wrote:

Bass, speckled trout, crappie, and a few might be better, but to me carp rank right up there. Trout and salmon will serve as survival food for me. I'll try most any thing once, and after I talked my buddy, in WV, into cooking one up he swore he would only give one up if he had too many for him and his family. He started keeping carp and giving trout away.

WOW, that's bout a first for me. IDK of anyone else that has ever felt like that. However, if you like it then that just leaves more for you. I would give you mine if we lived closer to each other. Not that I catch very many.

doc alden

saw1 wrote:

That's not the case here. There are a lot of things you COULD eat for survival. That doesn't mean they taste good and you should eat them if you don't have to. Personally, I would put CARP and the like in that category. IDK to many people that would eat carp or buffalo if they had other fish they could eat instead.

My mother wouldn't eat carp or catfish because they were "trash fish", meaning bottom-feeders. It wasn't that the meat didn't taste good; it was that she believed that their flesh absorbed all the nasty things on the bottom of a body of water. Many people still believe the same thing. But almost any fish is edible if you're hungry enough, although there are some rare exceptions like coral reef fish and puffers, and even puffers are edible if prepared correctly. If not prepared correctly, you will die. There is no antidote or cure.

Ronniejw Loc: West Point MS

Don't forget some pelagics and sharks are high in mercury. They eat the bottom feeders too

Catfish hunter Loc: Riggins idaho (Paradise)

Fish4fun wrote:

This is a Mayan cichlid. Fun to catch. Release so someone else can catch him too or leave him on the bank for the birds? Any opinions? I opted to put him back.

I think it all depends on whether they are hurting anything or not. We have a huge influx of invasive human species in the U.S. right now and we protect those. They are hurting the entire system🤷‍♂️

Fish4fun Loc: Clinton, NJ & Venice, FL

Good point. With the exception of any native Americans on the forum we’re all ancestors of folks who invaded.

msmllm Loc: Huntington, WV

I'm sorry, I could not lay a fish on the bank to die whatever kind it is. I would cut my line or put it back in the water. All I can say is WOULD YOU like that if you were that fish?

Jimmy D

Thank you.

bozokarl Loc: south central Pa

A friend of mine told me his grandfather used to catch carp, bring them home and put them in a trough full of clean water. He'd change the water every day until it stayed clear then clean and cook the fish. My friend said it was some of the best fish he ever ate.

Catfish hunter Loc: Riggins idaho (Paradise)

bozokarl wrote:

A friend of mine told me his grandfather used to catch carp, bring them home and put them in a trough full of clean water. He'd change the water every day until it stayed clear then clean and cook the fish. My friend said it was some of the best fish he ever ate.

I’ve done that and it’s true. Some of the best, smoked, fish I’ve eaten but I only did it in the spring when the water was pretty cold. My gramma wanted all the scraps to till into her garden for fertilizer so we waited till we got home to gut and skin em. Her garden grew like crazy.

Buffalohunter Loc: Florida

When speck fishing, I take mud fish ( bowfin) home and bury them in my garden. I always heard that they eat game fish, so I don’t put them back in the lake. Have fun, good luck and stay safe.

JohnG Loc: Long Island NY.

Same here. We caught them at will in Wading River on the north shore back in the 60’s. I only had a hand line. My big brother hot the rod and reel, but I always out fished him. They are very tasty.

JohnG Loc: Long Island NY.

Technically I guess it’s an invasive species, but if it’s part of the food chain I would think its not a problem, unlike lion fish.

wtyson11 Loc: Palm Bay, FL

Spiritof27 wrote:

Some puffer fish are toxic if you don't know what you're doing cleaning them they can kill you. But I hear they're delicious, if you do know how to do it. When I was in the Marshall Islands the word was not to eat barracuda because they preyed on fish that ate other fish that ate coral. But again, if you cleaned the toxic parts out they were delicious. The first sashimi I ever ate was barracuda from those waters.

Used to catch blowfish occasionally here in FL in the Indian River. Never ate them due to the fact that you had to know how to clean them, or they could kill you. A buddy of mine, who lived a block or so from the river, caught several of them one day. As a kid of 6 or 7, he thought it was great the way they blew up. He decided to save some under the porch of his house - many FL homes were built off the ground at the time. At any rate, he didn't think of what the heat would do to them. Needless to say, it wasn't long before the smell of rotten fish got him in trouble. Last time he "saved" fish under the house.