Strange Mahi Meat

[Heli Sports]

Seen my share of cookie cutter bites, fresh ones and scars from old ones on several species of fish...Never noticed an effect on all of the meat from a cookie bite, though.

I have. A significant number of Giant Atlantic Bluefin Tuna with healed over Cookie Cutter Shark (Isistius brasiliensis) bites have Shirakumo Yamai, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico. Yamai, or "white cloud disease" is manifested as pale white flesh with a gelatinous consitency. In tuna it can be localized, but is frequently found throughout a percentage of a loin, one side of the tuna, or on rare occasions affecting the entire fish. This occurs frequently enough for savy buyers to be wary of tuna with Cookie Cutter Shark scars. Tuna with healed over scarring from encounters with Orcas, Sharks or escapes from a harpoon often have Yamai, so I suspect that it might be some kind of infection.

In the case of the Mahi in question, it simply sounds like scarring from a past encounter with a billfish and though I would personally remove the affected meat, it is safe to eat.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Good stuff, Heli. Very interesting to boot. It's really cool how much you can learn from others on this site. Thanks for the information.

Did you ever find any of those big, disgusting worms that have what initially appears to be an old tag sticking out of a tuna...then when you cut it, there's this nasty critter. Yaaarrrggghhh! I hate to even think of those things!

This has been an interesting thread.

[Heli Sports]

Did you ever find any of those big, disgusting worms that have what initially appears to be an old tag sticking out of a tuna...then when you cut it, there's this nasty critter. Yaaarrrggghhh! I hate to even think of those things!

I think you are referring to a type of parasitic Copepod species "Pennella"



I have pulled quite a few of these off of Swordfish when they were on the scale during a longliner pack-out, but I don't recall seeing these on Bigeye Tuna more than once or twice...