BigBendFishing.Net

This was taken over in Mississippi where I am currently pursuing my Masters. We dove a couple of rigs and I decided to carry the pole spear and clean up a few lionfish on the rigs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSfau_U5CYQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSfau_U5CYQ[/video]

Very cool first video, Trevor. Liked the soundtrack too.

Those were some big lionfish. How many were you able to cram into the ZooKeeper?

I wrote a piece on lionfish harvest for TIDE earlier this summer. The seafood market is growing for them, fortunately. Some of the divers are making decent money, especially in the Keys.

If you'd like a copy, let me know and I can email a scanned copy to you.

Are you at USM with Jim Franks?

Thanks SK! Those lionfish were monsters, two were 10mm away from the state record. That zookeeper is able to hold about 25-30 decent sized lionfish at a time once you release the extension.

Fortunately the market is becoming pretty great for fresh lionfish. My buddy, Alex Fogg, just finished up his masters work on lionfish out of GCRL with some pretty cool findings. I'd love to see the article, email me at trevor.moncrief@usm.edu

I'm actually good friends with Jim Franks and we both work at the Gulf Coast Research Lab together! (Small world right?)

Cool video. It always amazes me how alien species can thrive when native species are struggling.

Loved the video and proud of my nephew. Can you eat those things Trevor?

Thanks Uncle Lex! They're absolutely delicious and definitely in my top three fish to eat. All white meat with a great taste.

Very cool video and wild to see how unafraid they are...

What do they taste like?

Like chicken, of course.

I haven't tried them yet, but similar to hogfish and snapper with the texture of grouper, I've been told.

Lionfish is delicious. VERY white and VERY delicate. It would be very easy to mask the deliciousness of lionfish.

My dad goes spearfishing and the boat captain always brings the stuff to make ceviche and usually on the first dive everyone is able to contribute a lionfish or two and they'll make lionfish ceviche that doesn't last long at all once it's served up.

I had it in a restaurant down in Cape Canaveral once. They cooked it in a "froiled" way....they said it's flash fried and then broiled to finish cooking it (i'm not a big fan of broiled fish). I was expecting fish nuggets or something ooookie looking but I was curious so I ordered it anywho. It came out whole. and delicious looking....and was excellent