Can You Eat Saltwater Catfish Trash Fish or Treasure
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- Join us as we clean a cook the most common trash fish of all.
Are saltwater catfish good to eat? The question is answered!
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Backwoods Gourmet Channel it's like skinning a gar fish, A PAIN IN THE ASS.. You keep doing what you do brother- and don't trash those fish left over because you can make a nice fish stock with that
I feel 95% of "trash fish" is trash because the people making it can't cook.
Not Your Average Fish Keeper.
Shark is not one of em. They just plain suck.
@@primeribgaming2681 I've never eaten shark meat before. Do most sharks taste bad?
Koopa Troopa Poopa
They urinate through their skin, so it gets in the meat. I caught one, bled it and gutted it right when I caught it, soaked it in milk, and drowned it in blackened seasoning, but it still tastes like urine. Same for all sharks.
@@primeribgaming2681 Wow! That's interesting and disappointing at the same time. It's mostly a shame, because sharks have a lot of meat I bet.
Koopa Troopa Poopa
Yeah, but they are good dog treats. Lol.
Many years back my wife and I were camping on the causeway of the Sunshine Skyway. I caught a Gafftop Sail, it was probably 6 or 8 pounds. Once I got him dehooked and ready for release the guy next to us came over hollering to not let it go. He was saying how good they were. Now being the fish snob I am I wanted nothing to do with this slime coated monstrosity. He said if I would give home the fish he would fillet it and cook it up for us. Week he was homeless living out of a 70’s circa Chevy C100 pick up. I have in and let him have the fish. The only oil we had to fry it in was about 3 days worth of bacon grease. That was one of the best meals I’ve had in my life. We let the homeless guy have the leftovers. He was very grateful and so were we.
Growing up in Florida, people always said the hardheads were trash but in my experience if they're prepared and cooked right they are just as good as any other catfish. Just goes to show just because a lot of people tell you it's trash doesn't make it so.
thats like half of the fish population the ppl of nowdays only eat what is thrown in front of them at the market ....
Lobsters at one point considered. Trash fish and thrown back. Now they are a delicacy. So goes to show you. Seen several of these videos and not one negative review on eating salt water cat fish.
Thank you for making these videos brother. I really enjoy seeing somebody take the time to share their knowledge and experience with people, especially in regards to something as positive as not being wasteful or snooty. I have no idea why, but I find your videos so soothing. Again, thank you, and keep up the great work.
They call it a trash fish cause they're too damn lazy to clean it. Pure and simple.
Yea they pain in d ass ta clean gotta take all d red out n all
Great Video! Never had a hard head but Sails are plentiful in the canal in my back yard and I'll verity there as good as fresh water cats, which I love! Catfish are the only fish my wife will let me cook in the house cause THEY DON'T SMELL like fish. BTW, I grind oatmeal in a coffee grinder for my flower and fry them in 100% olive oil (not extra virgin as it smokes at too low a temp). That way they're extra healthy.
I like informative videos. From my experience (sixty years of fishing the gulf coast) I've cooked hard heads on occasion and I have to say being half head I wouldn't bother with any less than around three pounds to be worth the effort. As to the gaftop they often get 8 or more pounds and the larger ones need to be bled or the red meat along the lateral line should be removed for best taste. Besides frying they also smoke well on the grill.
Good video. I can catch as many hardheads as I want off my dock on Pensacola Bay. Think I'll give them a try.
On your sailcats they say cut the tails and let them bleed out also take the heads and let them dry out then scrap all the excess shin off and start taking the head appart by the sections and in the center section will be a crussifix
I'm a Hillbilly who makes it to Florida occasionally. Sail cat is excellent fare. Fried is best. I'll have to take your word on the hardheads. Thanks for the video.
i love salt cats. more so than freshwater cats. i was just for an easier way to clean. i did it the same way minus the nail trick. that was exactly what i needed to see. thank you for this video
Damit. I been throwing them back. I just threw 2 big ones back. I ask other fisherman every time I go to the coast.
I'll never throw one away again. I was already contemplating on trying it for my dam self.
Thanks for the video.
Try them at least once and forget about the folklore. Thanks for watching and learning.
I have been surf fishing and have caught many of these catfish. Next time I'll be frying them up also. I to have heard for years they were bitter and oily. But I do remember fishing and had a 5 gallon bucket and a guy ask me was I going to keep these, he took the entire bucket full said they were great to eat. I should have listen...
I live in SW florida and both of those cats are great to eat...Keep'em coming
just ate sand shark for the first time a couple weeks ago AKA trash fish. it's actually one of my favorite fish now.
big ugly AKA. Oprah's minge ditto
Excellent! Learning from start to end. From catch to cooked on plate.
Man I grew up in south central Florida, and just as you said, always herd can't eat salt water cats. But when you grow up in a house with six other brother and sisters, you learn to eat what ever is put on the table. So yes I've not only eaten, but also enjoyed salt water cat fish. Thanks for putting the word out there.
Thanks for watching.
hard head catfish are good fried or blackened.. the thing is you gotta catch em 20 inches and up to get a good fillet
I wish you'd make more I absolutely love these
There are lots more on my channel. Check them out. th-cam.com/users/wesleyscottchandler
I'll never throw one back again when camping. Thanks for sharing, loving your channel!
Thanks for watching.
Caught it and ate it in florida. Didnt know they were trash. Tasted ok
Gafftops ....my fav as a young man. No contest. Except croaker
jeez
Haven't eat any in 30 years but riding 200 miles to fish if other fish weren't biting then we brought back coolers of these and other people would gladly give the ones they caught , they taste great !
That is the thing. I drive 85 miles to the coasts (East and West). Been on many trips when we have caught lots of great eating fish but could not legally keep any due to seasons or slot limits. These fish are alternatives, not our target species. If it were not for all the damn laws and regs, I would have never needed to even try this fish.
The ol boys I grew up around told me, "Milk bath & refrigerate your cat/bullhead fillets for 24-hrs, this flushes some of the murky flavors from fish prior to breading & frying.
I have also heard of that for freshwater cats.
That's the way my grandma did it, she could make anything taste good
my dad used saltwater bath, my only uncle that dis fish used the milk bath. i guess it is just who taught you as far how you do it.
Jeffrey Donaldson The saltwater bath is what my grandma used.
Use buttermilk to soak them or game..pulls the blood out of them..
When i was a kid i fished every day and my family ate a lot of sailcat and hard head a lot and a lot of blacktip also . I mean a lot.
if you like fried fish try everglades fish fry
AMAZING!!!! Just subscribed about to binge watch all your episodes so happy I found your channel. P.S. The only way to eat fish is FRIED!!!
Welcome and thanks for watching.
Lol you showed the nail as i was gonna tell ya the trick
Thanks! all my fish are blackened, smoked or fried
Always wanted to taste the gafftop catfish, but it's hard to get past the slime factor when handling them. Fun to.catch though
Backwoods Gourmet Channel will there be anymore trash fish or treasure videos? I do enjoy the fishing videos and also showing people that some 'trash' fish we either chum or throw back can be food.
There will, as some I cant get back on the water and catch some. The weather has been terrible here for over a week.
Okay just asking I know sometimes mother nature can be a cruel mistress. Sea Robins is one you can do they seem pretty easy to catch and contrary to about 90% of fishermen I have talked to you can eat them and they are pretty good.
Shouldnt matter how you cook them if thats the way you like them. If you like fillets rolled in dirt and cooked in a crockpot, then who is to say. I have caught and released I don't know how many saltwater cats. I might just have to try one next time. This is where we differ - paper plates, no dipping sauce and forget the presentation.
Our channel is called "Backwoods Gourmet", so the presentation is obligatory. That does not mean you have to do it. Thanks for watching.
I love fried fish but the best fish I have ever eaten was a trout served blue (dont know if trout served blue is what I mean) but in germany we call it a trout served blue.. or blue trout whatever. No fried fish in the universe can hold up with that taste
I would like to know more about this.
Man u answered a question I've been wondering about for years. Thanks.
Thanks for watching.
Oh my! Seawater catfish is expensive here in Singapore
I just subscribed! This was my first video of yours that I watched. Love it!
Welcome and check out the channel page for much more.
Why do people remove the skin? After we gut and remove the fins, we salt the whole thing and deep fry the whole fish and eat it, skin included. The skin is crispy and delicious.
I tried the Hardheads once and didn't like the texture and the flavor was a little off. However, Gafftops are great especially with a beer batter. If you want something really bad the next time your in the gulf try a ladyfish. They look like miniature tarpons and fight like one but they taste like crap.
Looking for trashy fish, I have always thought Carp was horrible. I dont know..
I've heard cravelle jack are trash fish. I've caught a few but didn't try them.
i dont know what kind of salt water cats we caught when i was young. I dont remember the long fins so it was probably the other one. But we ate them. Did you know that the skull has a crucifix in it?
I have heard that they do have a crucifix. Thanks for watching.
Went fishing today, must have thrown back 30 of these...and didn't catch anything else big enough to keep...still though, eating hardheads... I don't know, I've got my pride...it just aint right somehow! I've always been told anyway. Of course I've always been told jacks are no good to eat and I ate some the other day and they were darn good.
Take a cast net and catch some green back bait fish. Can you eat them?
They taste just like fresh water channel cat. Also they say the gulls wont eat them. throw some to the gulls and watch them inhale them.
Anybody that can drink Natural Light Beer can probably eat anything pulled out of the sea! Just Kidding
Do you salvage the peanut oil for further uses? How do you filter/clean it? Good vid!
Yes. I usually just let all of the batter sink to the bottom and pour off the clean oil. This stuff is too expensive to throw out after 1 use. Thanks for watching.
Do they taste good without any seasoning besides basic salt?
After seeing multiple videos I tried a sail cat. It was not good. Has a strange slight after taste I can only describe as faintly-soapy-cleaning-solvent-tang. Not terrible, but nowhere near as good as other fish or even freshwater channel & bullhead cats.
The strange aftertaste wasn’t “in your face”, but it was there. Drown it in batter, grease and a dip/sauce, make sure to immediately wash it down with a beer... there are worse dinners... but I’ll just keep throwing them back. You can have mine, bud :)
I think your cat was caught in polluted waters. Good saltwater cats don't have an aftertaste. Hardheads or gafftops in harbors or marinas can pick up all kinds of bad flavors, but so can other fish.
i thought i caught 6 hard heads yesterday and now you saying they are sail cats. all i know is they are slimy and after the 1st one got in the boat all the rest use unhooked over the side of the boat.
If they have the very long tips on the ends of their side and dorsal fins, they are sailcats or gafftop.
I've eaten sail cats before, and fillet them, they are good but i dont think i'd EVER eat hard head
i eat lots of catfish im glad the salt water fish is delisous to
Damn those looked good! Who knew? I love flounder too
Thanks for watching.
If you are stumped on a fish to find that you might not like I would advise a dogfish (the variety of shark that is). Around here in northeastern NC we catch them all the time on the piers. They put up a good fight so they are fun to catch, but they are a bitch to clean and they taste very very fishy IMHO. Their skin is very tough, and you have to clean them much like you would a catfish.
I used to catch those off of the Atlantic Beach Pier back in the 80's when I was stationed at Cherry Point, NC Everyone, even Asian folks threw them back.
They probably taste bad because you don't bleed them.
+Gamerpro xzz, Not really, I think they are just a fishy fish. We bled them like we do any larger salt water fish. The entire fish tasted like the blood line of a very fishy fish like a Bonito for example. I know some species of shark, like the leopard shark on the west coast, actually urinate through their skin, and if you don't prepare the meat right it will taste very chemically almost like ammonia, but if you do prepare it right they taste a lot like scallops.
We eat them all the time here in Britain. It's best to soak the meat in milk before cooking them because they're a shark, it absorbs the urine out of their meat
i fished that pier too, same time, I bet we were there at the same time, i use to go to radio island and surf fish it too also Fort Macon.
You are about to have a good ol Indiana boy come down there and show ya how to clean a cat
I grew up with catfish. Good fried but great curried with rice. Sometimes can make a soup...
Oh, curry, that's really interesting. Can you post the recipe? Thanks!
A beer to wash it down if not good, cat must be good. but looks like a good day to drink the beer anyway!
amen brother fried is the only way
I think getting finned has a lot to do with it ! Seems like the little tiny catfish can hurt you a whole lot worse than the big ones the little tiny ones Pack-a-Punch ! They can ruin your whole weekend ! Big gaf tops I recommend cutting out any red !
the fish looked good well everything u cook looks good i would like to te ll a short story as a kid my father ,a couple of his friends,and I would go salt water fishing for drum under the big bghhhb well they would catch the drum cuz they were so big I would catch cats, one day I caught a big sail cat bout 10 lbs my dad told me we will take it home and he will show me something amazing,well the next day we cut it's head off,put it n an ant bed bout a week later we got it out and it had the crusfiction on it and when u shook it u could hear something inside rattling he said that sound was the dice if life ,again it's Amazon u should do this
Their lot easier to skin when they're cold
I pity the brute who eats an unfried catfish
great video
This is such a cool channel.
Dad cooked some fresh water eel. It tasted much like catfish.
I agree fry em up. By the way nice looking okra in the background.
Just started watching your vids man love em so im subscribed also forget those haters that dont know a good video theyre just mad they cant fish or cook fish the same lol
Welcome and thanks for watching.
Great Cobia bait. (HardHeads)
Why pull the skin .I fillet them just like trout or red fish.
Because they dont have scales and are very difficult to fillet the skin side.
Welcome love the channel
Welcome Beast Mode.. Thanks for watching
that gaff top will send you to the hospital if it sticks you
We used to nail the head to a tree and then skin them.
What's the point of skinning them if you're going to turn around and filet them? I just filet them right away and be done with it.
The skin is very hard to remove with the knife.
I can't eat any fish that don't have scales.
Fave!
sure you can, just have a sep cooler for em, slimey...................
I’ve grown up eating saltwater cats and sail cats. I never knew they were considered trash fish. They are delicious
Me too. I always cut the skin behind the dorsal fin and used the front side to hold it with my left hand and pliers in the right hand. Easy as pie. Never filet them just fried them whole.
It boils down to listening to people instead of trying it ourselves. Growing up poor in florida, hardheads, sailcats, bonito, jack cravalle all tasted good. The elite folks scoffed at them. Theyre the ones that started those lies...
@@bonepicker1 HELL YEAH!!!!
EVERYTHING tastes good after enough beers! LOL
This is so country, I love it. Camo shirt, camo visor, Merica shorts, fried catfish appetizer, fried catfish main dish. God bless
Thanks for watching.
Not just any camo shirt, a camo Chef Jacket, buttons and all! :D Just about the best dern thing I've seen this week.
Tmendler - wait! I thought this was normal and I'm female!! 😂😂👍🏻😘
The Natty light helps
why go thru all the trouble of skinning them if u are gona flilet them?
I have tried to fillet these and take the skin off after. Very difficult since the skin is so tender. You will either cut through, or leave a bunch of meat behind. All commercial fishermen do it like this.
miamiwax yeah, I just filet mine
I have never skinned a catfish that I was going to fillet. Can't imagine the saltwater variety being any different.
You don't even need to clean the guts or heads if you're going to fillet them. Use the heads and the rest of the body for crab bait!
I am very happy that I subscribed....you have great presentations. It's very odd how people can have snobby attitudes about their fish choices.
Living here in Wisconsin I see it all the time. Sometimes people judge the taste of fish based on the appearance or the maybe on the difficulty
of cleaning them irregardless of their flavor....please tell Mrs.Backwoods to speak up, I would like to hear her opinion....keep up the great work.
Thanks for watching. Mrs Backwoods gets a little shy around the camera. Any other time you can hear her, believe me.
Backwoods Gourmet Channel At what Temp. did you fry at? 300° F?
Backwoods Gourmet Channel lol
Donald Polanco Yes, but no higher than that.
Backwoods Gourmet Channel I heard it's not really about taste.It's the high mercury this fish carry cause of their eating habits of eating in the mud.But that's what I heard.
Thanks for the doing this video. I grew up on the Texas coast and have heard the same things about hardheads and gafftop. I've been wondering if everyone was right. I might try a sailcat next time I catch one.
I'm going to check out that jackfish video. That's another fish I've been curious about.
Sail cats are good but I've always believed hard heads are trash
Glad you made this video. Here along the TX gulf coast hardheads are considered trash fish, but you'll see a few folks saying gafftop are good. I tried my first hardhead many years ago and I say they are better tasting than blue, channel, and gafftop. Gafftop are too slimy to keep : ) They'll muck up the cooler real good and just aren't worth the mess, imo.
Nice fish fingers looking really beautiful never had cat fish great presentation !!
This is good to know! Growing up fishing off the Texas gulf coast, we ALWAYS tossed gaff tops and hard heads back into the water. Hundreds and hundred of them. Sounds like we missed out on some good eating! I do remember that the whole reason we would release them, was the difficulty cleaning them.
Thanks for watching.
What you forgot is to cut the tail off of the hardhead. They are a bloody fish like the Bluefish and somewhat bitter. Let the fish bleed out before doing any filleting. The hardhead has a rib cage. The belly meat is food meat also..NO bones. For Bluefish, cut behind the head and bleed out. Folks down here by Galveston catch pretty good size Gaff Top's...better meat as you said. Use squid for bait.
Catch up on your filleting skills !!
USMC66'-
BG I am a subcriber from México living in the Yucatan close to Mérida. These HH catfish are plentiful here and I fry them up about the same as you. The Mexicans use them to make a catfish soup with vegetables. Plentiful natural resource. Very tasty. Nice to see you do a catch & cook. I agree with some of the comments below...most don't know how to clean and fry them up to where they taste a damn. Cheers man cool video.
Caldo
Now I’m bummed. I’m over 60 yrs old and never ate saltwater catfish but gotta try it after watching this video.
I ate my first one at 53 because I was always told the suck. Thanks for watching.
As a young man, I fished these salt water catfish. When you opened the skull, they had two white calcium lumps inside. We call these catfish pearls. I collected them and had a bag full. Don't know if you all knew this. That was seventy years ago. They are better to eat and taste better then fresh water cats. Reason why, because freshwater cats suck thru mud and pollution. Salt cats suck coral sands and have a much better diet. Nothing wrong at all eating saltwater catfish. Plus, easy to catch. YUMMY.
Love your videos bro
Hard heads/turd rollers are pretty nasty but gaff top is really good if you bleed them well (i just chop the tail off and let them bleed out in my chum bucket) fillet and soak it in milk for a couple hours dump on some salt and pepper or cajun seasoning then roll it in smashed up ritz or hiho crackers and fry it.
I tried turd roller just about every way it can be cooked and it's just a nasty fish, too tinny and oily
I threw back a huge sail cat my buddy said that thing ain't no good. Jason we're eating the next one .
Fresh water catfish is best steamed with Chinese black bean sauce and other herbs and condiments. Oh, leave the skin on and top it with sliced green onion. Finish by pouring a few tablespoons of smoking hot vegetable oil on the steamed fist. Best catfish ever and must be healthier than the fried variety.
Never considered eating saltwater catfish. Hmm, I discovered I have biases after all. Gotta try it.
I don’t pull the skin and gut them and all that…just fillet and cut under the skin just like any other fish, it literally takes less than a minute. And btw…first thing I do when I catch ‘em is cut their gaffs off! I hate digging around in the cooler and getting impaled…
Of course you can eat them. I don't get the stigma against so many so called "trash fish" in the US
Something they told googans to stop them from wiping out their favorite fish lol
I once caught a bunch of Gafftopsail catfish and decided to experiment and see if they were as horrible as I heard they were. I cut the bloodline out after I filleted them and let's just say everyone at the the fish fry was asking what kind of fish it was and praising how good it taste lol.
Threw 2 hard heads back Sunday cuz everyone was hollering they are trash. Now I'm bummed I listened.
I have found that people will say a fish is unfit or trash just because they are ugly or hard / fussy to clean. Someone says the are no good then all their kids think they are no good and so on. when truth is they are good fish.
Every time I see one of these trash fish videos, they have always liked the saltwater cats. When ever I run across someone that says they taste like crap, I ask them, have you ever eaten one? They always say, no. LOL
This was honestly my first time eating them. Thanks for watching.
I think some trash fish just get that name because they get in the way of what some people really want to catch. So they just get downed.
I eat lake cats. Ya know they say they are scavengers but, all the cats I catch are full of muscles or brim.