Worst Tasting

[shot33gun9]

What's the worst tasting fish you've tried, freshwater and saltwater? My worst freshwater was Bowfin, not only did it have a thousand tiny forked bones, the flesh tasted muddy. My worst saltwater was a Spadefish, like trying to eat a cottonball

[carlf]

Interesting, I've found spadefish very tasty

Worst ever was a large black drum (18#) that I caught on light tackle. It was about dead by time I realized what it was and didn't want to waste a fish. Fillets wete simply inedible. Gross. Nasty.

Caught a Bermuda chub once, it tasted like iodine. Strong.

Not sure I've had a freshwater fish I didn't like.

[shot33gun9]

Oh man, a nasty 18# drum...puke. The parasites must have been huge at that weight

[Flatsrunner]

Aug 17, 2023 19:35:43 GMT -5 shot33gun9 said:

Oh man, a nasty 18# drum...puke. The parasites must have been huge at that weight

McDonalds Fish Fillet, easy to catch, just you regret it at 5am. the next morning, never kept a black drum to eat over 5lbs.

[shot33gun9]

I bash black drum, but I have never tried it. Have had a few Redfish which is a drum. Do they taste the same? I know they both can be loaded with worms

[aaronf116]

One time I ate a grass porgy I caught at Fred Howard. Tasted like LITERAL mud! 🤢

[carlf]

The large black drum I cleaned had no apparent worms, which was surprising. But it smelled and tasted BAD, and the meat had this horrible gummy texture.

It tasted nothing like bull red drum, which I have eaten and like, especially grilled.

Puppy drum (black drum under 5#) are very good. I do not keep them over about 24".

I've eaten large Jack Crevalle. Its not bad in fish stew/curry, but has a texture more like pork than fish. But I don't keep them over about 18" anymore.

[seabird]

Worst tasting and smelly was a fresh water sheephead. In contrast salt water sheephead are really good.

Best tasting fish in each category...walleye pike and snook.

[kingmackerelman]

remora taste just like cobia...best secret of the gulf...

worst fish was probably lizardfish...like mush with tons o bones...

[Flatsrunner]

Aug 18, 2023 6:17:30 GMT -5 seabird said:

Worst tasting and smelly was a fresh water sheephead. In contrast salt water sheephead are really good.

Best tasting fish in each category...walleye pike and snook.

Flounder one of my favorites, My Father used to gig them at night off the outer banks of NC.His biggest was a 9lb. doormat. The big commercial net boats wiped out that local population within two seasons in the early 70's. Tampa Bay had a decent population before when the waters were cleaner.

[fishtailz]

Shotgun talked about eating Bowfin. Another name for it is Mudfish. Had freshwater sheepshead smoked. Not bad. Caught a 50 pound Halibut in Alaska and gave most of it away before I ate any. Wished I had kept all of it. Have to throw Yellow Perch and Crappie in the mix for good eaters. The Mango given to me last trip to the pier turned out to be better than expected. Going to get some for myself this coming week. Hopefully.

[shot33gun9]

Where I grew up, bowfin was called grindle, but here they are called mudfish, much better name

[fishsci]

Probably the worst I have tasted was hardhead catfish immediately cleaned and cooked after caught from a mangrove estuary.  I tried it because a friend told me that the hardhead catfish he caught from the surf on the East Coast were not bad at all.  Howere the ones I fried up from the mangrove creek not only had a bad fishy/funky taste, but their flesh was soft and mushy.  Later my friend had me try hardhead caught from the surf on the northern FL Gulf coast, and it was not bad...not great, but edible.  So there are a lot of factors, size, where caught, how treated and kept, and above all -- how prepared,  that determines how good a fish is.

[bridgeman213]

Call me what you want but bluefish have to be the nastiest tasting fish I've ever eaten. My sister loves em. Yuk, you can filet em with a butter knife.

[shot33gun9]

Agree with that bridgeman, too much blood for me

[fishsci]

Bluefish are the perfect example of what I said above. How they taste largely depends on how they are treated, and a little on how they are prepared. You can be sure that if you catch a bluefish and let it lay on the hot concrete of the pier and in the hot sun, for even a few minutes, the flesh will get soft, and the oils in it will begin to cook and oxidize. The result will be a piece of mushy fish with a strong, oily taste. A bluefish needs to be put on ice immediately -- before it even stops moving. Also, if you put your bluefish in the freezer for even a few days, then have to thaw it out to cook it, the natural fats and oils in the flesh will begin to oxidize and give the flesh an unpleasant (to most people) taste. Bluefish, like most oily fish are best broiled or baked, not fried. Bluefish do not have more blood than any other fish. what people call the blood line (the dark red strip running down the fillet) is not a lot of blood, but instead is slow-twitch muscle that contains a high concentration of myoglobin that binds oxygen, the same way hemoglobin in blood does, to the iron containing molecule. So-called bleeding the fish by cutting its throat will not remove the myoglobin that is in the red muscle. If one finds that taste very objectionable, the best thing to do is to trim away as much of that red muscle meat as you can. I like to remove that red meat before I skin the fillet. I run my knife down the inner side of the fillet and along the obvious separation between the dorsal (upper) and ventral (lower) muscle masses at about a 45 degree angle toward the edges of the fillet. With a little practice, you can trim almost all the red meat off this way. It is much easier than trying to trim off the red meat from the outer side of the fillet after the fillet has been skinned.

[skywaypa]

The vast majority of "don't eat those" stories about fish are the result of improper handling, poor cleaning, and bad cooks. Or outright self serving lies, like the people who tell you that largemouth bass don't taste good because they are C&R/trophy only and don't want you eating their fish. Protip: LMB are just big sunfish. And therefore are quite delicious. Should you be eating 8lb+ bucketmouths? Probably not. But you COULD.

For improper handling, if you aren't keeping the fish alive they should be iced. Some fish benefit from bleeding, some it won't matter. The NE fluke guys are forever bleeding their fish even though flounder is the mildest fish you'll ever eat. Up to you. Bleed then ice is fine. UNLESS YOU CATCH A SHARK OR RAY!! Then you MUST bleed it before ice. Must. And if you can gut your shark also, even better. For rays (which are very good prepared correctly) I'm just cutting off the wings and icing those in a ziplock.

Poor cleaning: leaving bones or scales or skin and blood line. You ever get a piece of fried cod or haddock and it was crazy fishy? Was likely a tail piece that was half bloodline. That's always going to suck. Some fish never have much of a bloodline, and some always do. Bluefish being the prime example, but lots of common fish have them. If you are filleting a white meat fish and after skinning it you see dark red on the middle/bottom/tail, you want to remove it. ALL of it. A fresh caught bluefish properly trimmed of all bloodline and pan fried is as good as any fish. Just lots of gotchas, as mentioned above.

Bad cooks... not everyone is a chef. If your best effort is shore lunch breading and a shallow pan, that's fine! But some fish won't taste as good. You don't want to do salmon that way. Or tuna. But also some of the fattier fish around here, like pompano. If you REALLY want to know how a fish tastes, you need to be sauteing fillets in a very small amount of butter or neutral oil. Light salt and pepper and that's it. That will let you taste the fish. If you're deep frying chunks of fish in beer batter, you aren't going to be able to taste subtle differences. Texture, sure. Same goes for any bullcrap method that involves a bunch of mayonnaise or italian dressing. If you need to do that to fish, you probably don't like fish. Side note - every mate I've ever met on a fishing boat has had some crackpot voodoo recipe for fish. These are hardworking guys/gals and I appreciate them, but never take their cooking advice.

Anyway, enough ranting. If you want to enjoy fish you catch, do a bit of research on those fish. You'll be a lot farther ahead than getting group opinions online about which fish do and don't taste good. And if you're looking for a good place to start, watch some "catch and cook" youtube videos. There are millions of them, and you'll find one on every type of fish you'll ever catch. Just watch a few for your fish species and use the best tips. Good luck out there!

[carlf]

What he said.

I like bluefish and hardtails/bluerunners for fish tacos. But gotta cut out all the red meat/blood line.

[stuckintherocks]

I had heard that big remoras taste like cobia… kept one once.. not sure if it was the water I was fishing at or what but when I filet that sucker the meat looked green and tasted sour… fish was properly handled but maaan that sucker was nasty

[shot33gun9]

I'm no fish chef and never aspire to be, and I'm not searching for the best way to cook undesireable fish..and, I ain't eating no shark, bluefish, jacks or freakin stingray wings, yall can have it

[fishtailz]

My wife caught a couple 3 foot blacktips a few years ago. They got released. When we were loading the gear a guy asked if we had any luck. I told him and he said they were good eating. I asked how to prep one and he responded with you have to bleed and gut them as soon as you catch them. He said they urinate through their skin. My wife got a funny look on her face and said forget it. I ain't eating anything that urinates through it's skin.