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Bait species as food


royts

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Now everybody loves prawns, calamari and some even have garfish. But what about the other bait species as food? I've been to various tapas restaurants and had the most beautiful dishes of both sardines (pilchards) and anchovies. I've also been to a French restaurant and had mackerel, but not sure if it was Spanish mackerel. So is there anybody here who has cooked slimy mackerel (which I'm pretty certain is a close relative of the Atlantic mackerel, much loved in Europe), yakkas or even cowanyoung/horse mackerel? I must admit its a bit daunting to try those fish so I'm hoping somebody here has some experience.

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Rub some salt and pepper on gutted and cleaned yellowtail and dep fry..you will never want to use them as bait ever again! :)

Hmm that actually sounds like a good idea !!!

I will be trying that out on my next jew haunt, no jew? Meh can still come home with a bucketfull of yakkaz.

Cheers man,

jez

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Rub some salt and pepper on gutted and cleaned yellowtail and dep fry..you will never want to use them as bait ever again! :)

My parents, being Italian do that but here is the good part, what isnt eaten gets stuck together with vinegar, bay leaves and garlic, and wow it is actually pretty nice.

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Deep fried yakkas are AWESOME!... :thumbup:

Slimeys are good on the BBQ provided they are fresh, if you freeze them the flesh goes all soggy.

I also LURVE chopper taylor between 35 and 45cm they are def one of my favourites- I simply cannot bring myself to use one for bait when they are tasty as... baked, bbq, fried, smoked dont matter just have a few :beersmile: handy

Not into pilchards/whitebait personally but I dont mind a feed of decent Bully Mullet... We used to get them when I was a kid during spawning season on the nth coast- whatever didnt get used for bait was eaten.

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  • 5 months later...

Yep talked to Tetsuya once about yakkas and he loves em. A tip from him: best yakkas are during winter. Better fat content of flesh, he said. Though this may be a Japanese sensibility: they love the fattiest belly bits of sashimi tuna. There's certainly been enough jumbo sized yakkas around in past few months, and always when trying to find smaller ones or slimeys for livies.

Oh and a bit of facinating (to me anyway!) Sydney yakka trivia. Did you know the harbour/inshore and offshore yakkas are two different and seperate populations which don't mix. Interesting.

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  • 1 year later...

Yakkas??? Really?? Why am i only hearing this now!!!!!

I have tried slimys before after i had a relative out from England a few years back and we hit the bait grounds catching slimey after slimey, he thought this was the best day fishing ever!!! I told him that it was just the bait, his words were " be buggered!!!" We aint feeding them fish with that, im taking them home for the BBQ

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  • 1 year later...

Slimys are a quality fish. Went out to Islands off Port Kembla and ran into a massive school. Caught about 15 and had them 3 different ways.

1) Season with salt and pepper. Dip in flour then cook skin down for 2 min on hot hot skillet then 30 seconds on flesh side. Yumm

2)Made a fish masala curry. Absolutely the best fish for a curry.

3)Hot smoked them, let the cool in fridge then made a fish dip by mixing cream cheese, reduced cream, mayonnaise, salt pepper and whisky.

I get some strange looks and side remarks when people see me filleting them at the ramp. But none of these people have ever tried them, just think they are bait fish.

They are a first rate fish. You just need to know how to cook them.

Another great way is in an italian red sauce like a putaneska with olives etc.

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