Which are DO NOT EAT fish?

Croakers were the backbone of a mainstay meal for me & bro growing up on Mobile Bay (fish & grits).
We just scaled em, headed then split the belly open to eviscerate and momma fried em whole for us (we picked out the bones).
Nowadays I treat the medium sized ones like white trout and ground mullet, whiting, spot, etc in that 9"-12" range.
Scale them, than split them down the back, removing the backbone, ribs, head and guts.
This 'butterflied' whole fish can be battered and fried whole with only the fin bones to deal with!
Attachment 2331

Very little wastage ;-)

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Originally Posted by Pier#r

Croakers were the backbone of a mainstay meal for me & bro growing up on Mobile Bay (fish & grits).
We just scaled em, headed then split the belly open to eviscerate and momma fried em whole for us (we picked out the bones).
Nowadays I treat the medium sized ones like white trout and ground mullet, whiting, spot, etc in that 9"-12" range.
Scale them, than split them down the back, removing the backbone, ribs, head and guts.
This 'butterflied' whole fish can be battered and fried whole with only the fin bones to deal with!
Attachment 2331

Very little wastage ;-)

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That sounds realy good! I will be keeping the lager ones next time!

I fillet these same species over 12".
IMHO the larger specimens are a little too thick to deep-fry ;-)

Croakers are fine eating. Like others noted, fillet the bigger ones, scale, gut & cook whole the smaller ones.

Back in the late fall this year we caught a ton of big croakers at the pier. Cooked them up just like a whiting or slot red and they were great. They tend to have less meat for their size than a whiting or white trout, but definitely good for the table. I canned some of the meat and intermixed it with whiting, I still have a few jars of those left.

Them croakers are so good it sometimes bothers me a little to use them for bait. I feel the same about mullet -- we go to such expense and trouble to catch yellowfin tuna once in a while, when honestly a net full of mullet ranks right up there.

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Originally Posted by eym_sirius

Just so you all know - Remoras are as good, fried, as any fish I've ever had! They don't have a whole lot of meat, in relation to their overall size, so you have to catch big ones to make it worth it. The flesh is firm and white, with no aftertaste! A+
I had Remoras twice last year. Don't call remoras a trash fish if you haven't put in in the frying pan.

On the grill, Pompano is my favorite, with black drum (small, of course), and flounder and large whiting as next-to-faves.

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When it comes to the remora cousins, namely sharksuckers (mostly whitefin), that are infesting our pier, there is no disputing their taste quality. They are similar, and even slightly better than cobia. In fact, a properly prepped Crevalle Jack is also high quality on the texture and taste scale.

The issue, however, is not with taste, but with parasites.

Spaghetti worms (a cycling shark tapeworm larvae, Poecilancistrium caryophyllum), living in the muscle tissue and vertebrae columns of these fish and many other species make them less appetizing to most anglers. Additionally, the items occasionally discovered in the stomachs of sharksuckers and remoras can be severely grotesque.

That said, these parasites are completely harmless to humans either raw or cooked, and therefore shouldn't be a concern overall. If you've ever eaten a redfish or speckled trout, you've probably eaten hundreds of these larvae and never knew. No worries--you're safe.

Eat those remoras if you want, but regardless of their taste quality, they'll never be a desirable dinner fare since they have much higher exposures to contaminants and density of parasites than other accessible fish of higher quality--readily available to us local anglers.

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Originally Posted by Psychobilly

Any of y'all eat croakers? Read some where there was an easy way to clean them

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Croakers are delicious. Mid-late November they are thick on the end of the pier next to the pilings. Caught several in the 17-18" range.

Have any of you ever ate the black eels that are way up in the freshwater rivers(pearl river)? I'm from Columbia, MS and we have little black ladies that will take all of those slimey snakes you can catch... They say its good but I'm not sure about eating one. I'm also a bit disappointed that I hear mixed reviews on the jack tasting poorly since I gave mine away the other evening only to hear later that they taste good if done right.... WHAT IS RIGHT? AND what does jack actually taste like?

American eels taste great. The skin is toxic, so you must skin them.

The taste and texture is similar to alligator tail.

Cut meat into sections and half cylinders so it is cooked slowly, evenly and thoroughly.

Crevalle is only a matter of removing the spaghetti worms first. After that, cook it like you would a redfish traditionally. Can make fish balls out of it too. Catch smaller crevalle to help with fewer worms--which are harmless to humans, but not appetizing to see.

To help with taste, once landed, cut the jacks gills where the gill tissue meets the body on the inside and dip it's head in ice and water. The heart is by the gills, and it will bleed out quickly.

Once filleted and worms removed, leave on ice at least 4-6 hours so the meat can slightly age. Soak in either buttermilk or coat in dijon mustard an hour before cooking for enzyme conditioning.

Marinate in dales or moores mixed 50/50 with water for 15 minutes if you want extra tang.

Enjoy. Compares to pork chop.

In my opinion, however, there are better fish to eat. I use crevalle for making canned dogfood. So seriously only eat it if it's all you got or just plain wanting to try it.