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Does anyone eat Filefish? There were a ton out yesterday. We easily netted one.

Never heard about eating any. Only one way to find out.




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Very good to eat. Super firm, white meat.

Didn't know we had them in Gulf. Used to catch them off Jacksonville, and lots in the Philippines, but never caught one in the Gulf.
Also, don't think I've ever caught one over six or seven inches.

We did keep one and I filleted the little meat it had. Very white meat, I'll fry it tonight and try it.

Got to be good!

redcodefsu wrote:We did keep one and I filleted the little meat it had. Very white meat, I'll fry it tonight and try it.

There are a lot of different filefish species, most don't have any regulations (reverts to 100lbs aggregate), but some are illegal to harvest. I don't know the Gulf species very well, so I'd make sure to look it up before your next trip. We used to harvest them in S. FL, and when thick you could easily go home with 20-40lbs, probably more but that's a lot of fish to clean. Very good eats!!!

Tasted good fried but not worth the hassle. Very little fillets.

redcodefsu wrote:Tasted good fried but not worth the hassle. Very little fillets.

Yeah, you really need bigger ones to make it worth it. We usually kept em 20"-28" in the Atlantic. Not sure how common that size is in the Gulf.