Quote:
Originally Posted by 5th Tuition
Hit the water early this morning and caught some spot (decent size) near the bridge. Put about 20 in the livewell and hit the pilings with an incoming tide. We picked up 8 fish; with only 2 boated. Why only 2 boated? Because 6 were nasty looking and we didn't want to even bring them into the boat, dehooker works well for these fish  .
It was about this time last year that we left the bridge and headed south to pick up cleaner fish near poplar island.
I know that some of the marks on the fish can be attributed to scraping the pilings or contact with crab pots, but not some of the nasty stuff we saw today.
So here is my question, we saw a comercial hook and liner (last Thursday) bailing fish and only tossing over some obviously small fish back over the side. Do you think the comercial guys keep some of these sick fish (ones not too badly marked) and sell them to wholesalers? Once fileted; you will never know what the skin looked like. Is there a "standard" that the wholesalers use to buy fish? I might stay away from "fresh rockfish" on the menu the rest of the summer (for me personally).
I hope someone like "Reds" jumps in here to enlighten us. I would assume there is some control over sale of rock, and the condition of the fish.
There was another boat out there with us today and he caught mostly good looking fish with only a few bad ones. I'm glad his experience was just the opposite of ours. Because our ratio was so bad, I just had to ask.
5th (Marty) |
Since nobody else jumped in - here's my $.02 from personal experience.
Fish buyers are professionals and want a good product. The business I sell to has locations along the entire East Coast, their customers include all of the major grocery chains and restaurants. They have a reputation to look out for, as do their customers. Every fish is individually tagged with tags supplied by the DNR and allotted to that fisherman only. Each fish is visually inspected and weighed. If there are any that are even close to the minimum size they are measured. All fish must be thoroughly iced down from the time they are caught. Any obviously sick fish are rejected.
Personally, I won't even bring a sick fish into the boat, let alone try to sell one. Ending up with a case of "fish handler's disease" is not something I need to go through at this stage in life.