Dead fish. How do you feel?

[Deep C]

Hell I've been eating billfish smoked for 30 years... I would say that a sailfish tastes like shit if just plain old cooked but is the bomb-diggity when smoked. I used to give blues to the natives down in St. Thomas then one day I tried some and from then on... There was no question. Now I will tell some blood thirsty passengers on a charter that the billfish taste like crap just to keep them from wanting to kill one for the table but most of us know better...

Not all "public" is unaware of how good they are.Had a charter one time try to get one over on me though. We had a bucket of yellowtails from the reef and a box of big dolphin when a blue piled on a split tail I was running on the flat. We brought a healthy fish to the boat about a half hour later. I asked the fellow if he wanted to mount it. Told hime we don't kill any billfish that wasn't going to be mounted and that it was very expensive. He asked how much I gave him a pretty accurate figure and he said he wanted to mount it... We decked the fish and the day was done.
I cleaned the dolphin and yellowtails and they had so much fillet they could barely fit it in the coolers they had. I handed him the mount bill and he said "Cut him up. I'm gonna smoke him."
I got very pissed and said it was illegal to put a knife in a game fish on a Florida dock and dragged the fish to the waters edge and dropped it in. (at my transom so I could just gaff it back up when he left)... He got pissed then and wanted me to take 7/8 of my normal rate for "wasting" an hour fighting that fish ...
Instantly I went into over drive... Got my full pay and kicked him out of the marina. We got no tip but that one cooler full of fillet that accidentally wasn't put in the trunk tasted pretty good along side the smoked blue a couple days later at a dock party we had...

[AhiSlayer]

Aloha

personally I have killed several large marlin out here. I was surprissed how much they weighed, bigger than I thought.

As far as paletability goes,,,,For some reason blue marlin get worse and worse with size. The fish we like to eat are 150 lbs and under. It's not as moist as mako, sword, mahi or ono. We only take one for the table if other meat fishing attemps fail. I only killed one this year for an important celabration that included the Queen and her family. The Marshallese favorite offshore fish is aku. They look at the marlin and ask where is the blood? They like eating the heart and anything with blood

As far as fish over 150 that die,,I've only brought 1 back to the scale this year. The rest survived...The only reason I brought the one was because we were done fishing for the day. If the meat was filling the coolers I would have cut it loose
ahi

[AhiSlayer]

Big Steve and I were fishing for kings out of Jupiter Inlet one morning. The first fish was a darn saildog that Steve hooked perfectly in the corner of the jaw but maybe because we were fishing from a drifting boat it took an extra trip or two around the center consul before it came to leader

The bugger had thrown it's stomach out it's mouth. i stuffed it's tummy back in as best I could and we tried to revive it to no avail. I let 'er go and she drifted down under the boat and popped up 20' on the other side

I was the idiot that said let's keep it. We had no way to ice the long bugger down and certainly didn't want to quite fishing so I cut it in half and wedged it into two seperate holds with ice on top

When we went in a ranger dude stopped our boat and saw the "mutilated fish" he was very concerned the fish was cut in half. Explaining that do so was illegal and we faced a $5,000 to $10,000 fine. Ranger Dude took photos of the fish explaining he needed the photos for his report. He explained that since the fish was cut it was possible the fish was actually two different fish. i don't understand that part.

The wind up was Steve spoke to the local Coast Guard Commander and the charge disappeared.

Lesson learned. Don't cut a billfish all the way through.

My feelings on taking live billfish when your surounded by people that make their living catching them over and over. Only swordfish. Everything else gets cut loose
ahi

[reel fool]

Had a charter one time try to get one over on me though...I got very pissed and said it was illegal to put a knife in a game fish on a Florida dock and dragged the fish to the waters edge and dropped it in. (at my transom so I could just gaff it back up when he left)... He got pissed then and wanted me to take 7/8 of my normal rate for "wasting" an hour fighting that fish ...
Instantly I went into over drive... Got my full pay and kicked him out of the marina. We got no tip but that one cooler full of fillet that accidentally wasn't put in the trunk tasted pretty good along side the smoked blue a couple days later at a dock party we had...

Hope that all your potential charters see this post & wisely choose another boat.

Why do so many captains & mates think that the day is about them? When I charter a boat, the days catch belongs to me. You would have recieved $0.00 from me after you dumped the fish into the water.

[AhiSlayer]

Aloha
The practice of offering large commissions for taxidermy was IMO not very good for fish or fishermen, and helped lead captains down the wrong path.

I'm glad that's behind us
ahi

[Deep C]

Reel Fool

I see you fail to understand I don't and didn't kill billfish for meat. Back then (about 25 years ago)we didn't have release mounts. That marina offered no mount commissions to the boats and had standing policy that no billfish were to be docked without being mounted. It was made clear to him that only mounted fish would be killed. I told him the price and he heartily agreed...

The customer deliberately lied when he said he wanted to mount that fish... plain and simple.

It would have had a long happy life had he not lied...

As for the charter keeps the fish that varies from area to area. Twenty-five years ago when this happened our area it varied boat to boat. To this day, most giant tuna trips up and down the coast the catch belongs to the crew... In the Bahamas and elsewhere the typical is the catch belongs to the crew. On my Bahama trips and all my trips though the catch belongs to the passengers within legal limits. No billfish will be killed under any circumstance and WE WILL NOT TAKE ANY ILLEGAL FISH ABOARD...

The customer deliberately lied when he said he wanted to mount that fish... plain and simple.
It would have had a long happy life had he not lied...

I retrieved that fish and ran back off shore to cut it because there used to be a law that game fish could not be cut on charter docks and then the marinas rules against it. I burnt the fuel and took the time so it wouldn't go to waste.

I see Islamorada in your list of credits. Ask some of the old timers around Whale Harbor what would have happened twenty five years ago if someone greased a marlin and cut it up for his passengers. When I moved there they did offer commissions but the no cutting billfish rule was strictly enforced.

Are you saying it wouldn't draw some heat if someone starts hacking up whites for charters at Sunset or Fishing Center?

So if you would have a problem with that, I guess that would be your perrogative. Now I won't kill one even for a mount. They make release mounts now to alleviate that problem.

[AhiSlayer]

Aloha! Deep
That post up there left me scratching my head too

Good job providing an explanation. The written word can be tricky to understand
Maholo
ahi

[Squidnation]

In previous posts Tommy Tuna made a great point. Who deemed the billfish more important than others. The reason I ask is becuase of Deeps last post. I remember fishing on a prominant Whale Harbor charter boat and my 5 yr old caught a small shark (4ft) while trolling. The mate stuck a gaff in it and when I asked why, the capt said I gotta hang it. It helps us get charters. I suggested that we release any future non-ediable fish and he declined and said that charters are hard to come by and we need to hang all fish in order to attrack business. Later that day we caught a 60lb amberjack which we had no intentions of eating. Once again he slipped the gaffed fish right in the cooler next to the dead Barracuda that we also didn't plan on eating. Minutes later I hooked a sailfish and the captain made absolutely sure that the fish was carefully released so long as I didn't want to mount it. My son innocently asked what sailfish tasted like and the captain said we wouldn't be allowed to eat it. It wouldn't be right???????????????

[Deep C]

Ark
Great points made in your presentation. The billfish in the Keys are treated like some holy deity. Appearantly still today its still holds true.
Unfortunately there is quite probably a dark secret that the cappy didn't let you in on. At Whale Harbor and for that matter most of the charter docks down there there is an Underground market for those "inedibles".

At WH we sold the AJ's to a fellow named "Stoney" who smoked them and would re sell them to various restaraunts. They brought $10 which was fair money back then. We were not pigs about it though. We knew the supply was finite and we limited ourselves to two or three max per day. Back then Cudas and sharks got between a dime and quarter a pound from the stone crab guys. In the winter chasing the snake king mackerel was popular form most of the boats. They'ld tack twenty or more on the pegs. The customes might take a couple then Plantation or Matecumbe would get the rest for 50 cents a pound. After a couple years of doing it myself I turned off to the concept selling fish all together.

Here in Palm Beach there is a thriving market for "spotted sea trout". I may keep one once a blue moon for shark bait but never to hang. However, over at one of the very popular local marinas they are brought in and sold after the charter leaves. It really gets under my skin. I stopped selling even good fish all together about fifteen years ago. If a charter doesn't want to take their catch of edible species home. I cut it and give it away. Then I see these guys on the fancy dock with their million dollar rigs. Slinging cuda for a buck a pound?
The same hold true for amberjack and yes even shark.

I'm one of only two charters that runs from my marina and we don't even have racks. I like it that way...

[Squidnation]

Actually as much as that may be true I watched them give the fish away to the hatians that worked in the kitchen. They said the hatians loved to eat the ajs. I guess it is OK that someone ate it but the fact that they killed it just to hang it bothers me a bit. I have NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER if these guys are upfront tell us they get .50 or $1.00 a pound for the fish and they wanted to sell it. Hey - its a living and no one gets rich off charter fishing. If it helps them out and the fish will be consumed then fine. As much as I don't like it I have no problem with mexicans or hawaiians keeping billfish for food. So long as they are upfront then it is my choice weather to charter the boat or not. I am going to Bermuda in November and it seems that the fish belongs to the boat in Bermuda. But they put it right on their website- that is the rule. No Problem.