Fishing tips

@Pops

Well i kind of stretched the truth there, i don't do the paste i leave that to the wife, i think its something that kind of varies but generally has, ginger, garlic, chilli, candle nut, palm sugar, lime juice, salt in it, quite thick more a paste but use it like a marinade. smear it all inside and cut the flesh and smear in the cuts, and then often stuff the fish with cut lemon or lemongrass too (not sure why but Indonesians dont tend to use coriander so much like Thai's)

But the other day i just used an Indo brand paste from a jar that was a sambal (sambal balado)

Probably the biggest difference between the two other than the Sambal balado being more basic is Sambal balado is from Padang and they like lots of salty type foods & paste but Javanese and Balinese paste and flavours tend to be sweeter,

When i worked at a surf resort in the Mentawai's (one season only), it was always hard to keep the staff happy as we had a mix of Javanese, Padang & Mentawai staff and they all liked their foods differently if it was cooked prefect for one group the other group would complain it was too sweet or too salty.

@pops
Came across a whole fish recipe like Indo’s back in the day sitting around the campfire one night having a few, which resulted in a half arsed attempt at cooking a fish whole on the BBQ.
Anyway we basically scored the fish, basted it with tomato sauce and cooked it over the open coals in one of those grids that split in two. Tasted delicious and probably was!!

@Indo, sounds bloody good! Interesting r.e. the differences between the islands, hey. You get a similar thing in Malaysia even from one town to the next, and each town has it's own speciality foods.

@gary, love it! Fresh fish, fire and a few beers, what more do you need!

Thats a parasitic isopod.
v.common.

No drama to the fish usually, easy to remove and eat as normal.

btw, nice flatty.
I bet he was pumped.

Wow havent seen one of those for forever, i remember as a kid dad came home from a big fishing trip and there was fish(big snapper maybe) with them in their mouths and i was fascinated about them.

I think maybe they mostly live in or around the mouth?

Not something i would have expected on a flattie

Good on your son though, flatties are one of my favourite eating fish.

Think they’re called Doctors?

Good on your young fella. Ben, you may have only caught a puffer but you’ve obviously figured things out enough to put him on the fish. Good on you.

Tailor going mad everywhere this morning. Smashing metals at first light.

Caught a 50 cm KG at Streaky last xmas and after a few minutes in the bucket a big white parasite crawled out of its mouth and grabbed onto my finger, an old fishmonger said the fish would have been in agony and they are related to QLD. cattle ticks. Still ate it but didn't really enjoy it as much as usual. Most of the chinaman leatherjackets we used to catch at Rapid Bay had them too. Disgusting.

Studied a bit of marine ecology and biology at uni.
Remember being shocked at the number and variety of parasites found naturally in a sample of biomass we studied - caught in the intertidal zone at north straddie

You’d have to dip King George into a molten shit fondue hotpot before I found it distasteful. Even then I’d think twice.

Doctors don’t affect the meat or taste of fish. Pretty harmless really - for humans. They don’t seem to do fish any favours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua

thermalben wrote:

Phew, that's good to know. We were using prawns for bait and one of them also had a similar growth (under the shell) which we disposed of.. was worried it may have been a local disease.

Little fella caught four flatties, and a couple of brim.

I caught one puffer fish.

He won't stop reminding me, either.

Ben - Was your old man a fisho? They say the skill skips a generation

Was the one in the prawn under the shell of its head? Likely another isopod parasite from the family Bopyridae. Very common in prawns and if they are attached long enough can actually make them grow larger than uninfected animals (with the offset the host becomes sterile) fascinating shit those parasites

I cooked up a yellowtail kingfish once caught by a friend off tweed heads , the flesh after I grilled it had turned to mush , I couldn’t work out what had gone on and did a quick google search. Apparently in warmer waters a parasite infection causes this . Here’s a forum of others talking about it . http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php/202007-Mushy-Kingfish

Scombridae (histamine) food poisoning from improper storage of mackerel/tunas is a good reason to steer clear of fish in the tropics if you aren't sure.
ie if the fish has been sitting on a hot deck in the sun for hours .

Ciguatera poisoning
Ciguatera poisoning may result from eating any of the more than 400 species of fish from the tropical reefs of Florida, the West Indies, or the Pacific. The toxin is produced by certain dinoflagellates, microscopic sea organisms that the fish eat. The toxin accumulates in their flesh. Older fish and large ones (such as grouper, snapper, and kingfish) are more toxic than smaller, younger ones. The flavor of the fish is not affected. Current processing procedures, including cooking, cannot destroy the toxin.

The initial symptoms—abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea—may begin 2 to 8 hours after the person eats the fish and last 6 to 17 hours. Later symptoms may include

Itchiness
Pins-and-needles sensations
Headache
Muscle aches
A reversal of sensations of hot and cold
Facial pain
For months afterward, unusual sensations and nervousness may persist.

The bigger the mackerel the bigger the risk , also the further north it was caught . I know a couple of blokes who have had the 'ciga' and it doesn't look like fun .
On the soapie , soft flesh side,there's plenty of different nematodes to be found in larger fish , especially within those fish that have weaker connective muscle tissue , like jew and yellowtail kingys. . You'll know it when you fillet the bastard.

@tubeshooter, I know a couple of old Marlin boat skippers that copped a good dose of Ciguatera from their bottom fishing exploits up on the GBR......pretty well north of Fraser Island......Funnily enough, I never heard of it showing up in the NW...
The symptom that was the tell tale was the hot and cold reversal sensation......

We were restricted from selling any spanish mackerel over 14kg in southeast QLD for a while. Don't know if it still stands.
But yeah , the larger reef fish on the GBR have it too , it's not just pelagics.

I've had it, several times. From Spanish Mack not big fish either pretty horrible poisoning

current NSW Fisheries guidelines is not to eat any Spanish Mack, even those caught in NSW, over 10kg.

couple of Evans fishos got a dose of the ciga this year.

The idea of ciguatera worries me a bit. I don’t go out of my way to catch Spaniards around here under the belief that it was an occasional issue. The meat in my diet comes exclusively from seafood so I’m not too keen to cruel it as a source of food, which I reckon would be the outcome if I got a dose.

Shame as they’re probably my all round favourite fish.

It’s a dream in WA how you can eat anything and not worry about it.

Its my understanding that fish pick it up from the reefs it feeds on then goes up the food chain and gets more toxic, there is none around lembongan or penida but its up in the mentawi .

Caught a wahoo back in May and thought it’s dental ware might be a decent addition to our Oceanic Treasure Cabinet (Tm). Ridding the jaws of the surrounding flesh and assorted ghoulish gristle was the first step. Initially I just lopped the fish’s head off and tec screwed it to a tree down the bottom of our driveway. The downsides of this approach became apparent within hours as the head became subsumed in flys and began to utterly reek, the smell reaching the house on the wind.

Then I put the head in a crab trap and submerged it in the tidal creeek across the road. I gave it a couple of months then went to retrieve it. Amazing how little of the head was left, only about 8 bits of bone , including four jaws, a coup of cheek plates and other incidentals. I put them in a bucket of bleach for a couple of days and then in a sunny spot on the veranda to dry. One of the local butcher birds stole everything but the jaws.

Then I got some superglue and tried to recreate the shape of the jaws. Temporary positioning done with the aid of blu tack and garden pegs.

They turned out all right. A bit macabre for some, but they go well with the assorted trove of shells, and other bits and pieces. A lot of size was lost as the jaws are normally bound by soft tissue which makes up the vast majority of the head’s volume. As an interesting little side project, with a result that most fishermen find curious, I’d give it a two thumbs up.

good chewing as well as good fighting ...flesh is white, prefer it more than mackeral

Well done blowin, scull came up good . King barracuda jaws would look cool too , biggest one I caught off penida was 34 kg . Here’s a photo of wahoo someone speared from memory I think it was 83 kg but couldn’t have been recorded as worId record is 62 kg , had no idea they got that big , fat bastard ehh.

Supafreak,where was that taken..?....friggin beast

@simba , my mistake it wasn’t speared, the photo came up on Facebook years ago , maybe search down south spearos for more info

here ya go Blowin.

Looks potent!

How’s the hooked bib. Nice and deep. I might try and get hold of one.

Cheers mate

they are BKK 3x strong trebles.

not recommended for getting stuck in human flesh.

Oh shit thats heavy...guess only option is to crush the barb and pull it back through.

Jaws look cool Blowin.

indo-dreaming wrote:

Oh shit thats heavy...guess only option is to crush the barb and pull it back through.

I couldn't push it through in the car park. it was stuck.
had to drive to emergency, get the bolt cutters on it.
shame, it was a hot bite.

bet that hurt!! helps make the case for barbless, and good cutters every time you go out. seems the longer you leave em the more it hurts. God knows, i've had my share. I have a recurring nightmare of being tangled in bait jigs......

Argh yes i remember now you have posted that pic before.

Ive been pretty lucky ive been hooked but never come anywhere close to that deep.

I got a 10/0 right through my finger in the gulf of Carpentaria.
about 12 hrs steam from the nearest port.

slug of rum, towel between the teeth and cut out with a scalpel.

stitched up on board.

Lucky Chook

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just knocked off the last of the tuna steaks from this fish.

Hope that’s just the beach wheels freeride.

Nice catch tho.

Great photo. Really shows how spectacular those fish are. Check the head = looks like it’s been chromed. Classic car shot too…..stickbaits, soft plastics, minnows , wettie bucket , nice quiver of rods and a nice fish resplendent on newspaper. Throw in a bit of hay for background.

Good catch off the rocks.

The top photo of the treble through your arm looks unpleasant. That’s when you wish you had wire gauge toy hooks you can bite through yourself!

BTW -Funny you should be about to smash the last of that tuna, I just found some fish buried up the back of one of our freezers. Not even sure what it was. The colour looks like tuna but the grain and shape looks like macky. Spewing it got forgotten. Going to defrost it anyway. Fingers crossed it’s not too old. At least three months old….

fishing/surfing car.
always ready for action.

that was last March.
fish was ice slurried , chilled, filleted and then vac bagged.

came out absolutely perfect more than a year later.

just eating some fresh jewie fillets for lunch.
slight upgrade.

Cool chariot , and I'm guessing there is method to your madness regarding the placement and storage of tackle. At least I hope so.
Good news so far seems that NPWS aren't closing access to 4wd beaches like they did last year , to people who live within 10km of local boundaries {regional not Sydney}. Just hope I haven't spoken too soon.

thermalben wrote:

Phew, that's good to know. We were using prawns for bait and one of them also had a similar growth (under the shell) which we disposed of.. was worried it may have been a local disease.

Little fella caught four flatties, and a couple of brim.

I caught one puffer fish.

He won't stop reminding me, either.

Growing crew of kids in the ghetto below your place Ben that are getting into fishing. Most in the late Primary School years, into early high school years ... how old's ya boy? Worth him hanging with the other kids to get more experience, if your skills are lacking?

PS: I upgraded the boat. Offshore fishing is more productive. Keen to try?

nice mangrove jack...well done young fella...good eating and great fighting fish

Nice catch by the young fella!