Decided to bottom fish for a change of pace, especially since grouper was open.
Water temperatures were between 69.5 and 71 degrees from the dock to 90 feet. Wind and waves as forecast. Not super smooth but ok.
North Hole area in about 90 feet. Trolled for kings briefly to get a good idea of where to drop. Found lots of active live bottom and structure.
Caught a good variety of fish on jigs and squid. For the first time in a while, put some very nice BSB’s in the boat. Triggers, Almaco, porgy, too. One grouper, just a bit short sadly. Was not really targeting grouper in earnest, maybe next time. No Vermillion or White Grunt.
Shockingly, caught a giant quantity of endangered American Red Snapper. Not on jigs, though. The ARS don’t seem to take the jigs as well. Oddly enough, it seems all the ARS over 20 inches have migrated to state waters since it has been a while since I caught a really big one offshore.
Cut off by one good fish on a jig, possibly a king since I was not using wire.
Lovely day and delicious sushi/sashimi. Tried EF’s recommended Bluegrass Soy Sauce.
I would trade a deer for a few of them knife dullers
Caught a couple of twelve pounders on the Thunderstar years ago
Wish there were a head boat at Shem creek
Twelve pound trigger, wow. Never caught one that big.
Knife dullers for sure. I always clean them last because once done cleaning triggers, time to resharpen. But, they taste so good. No bad way to fix them.
I’ve traded b-liners for knife dullers on a headboat because folks didn’t wanna mess with em. Sman, I’d have been honored to stand at the rail of the Thunderstar with ya.
IMO: skin the entire animal, there’s a lot of collar and cheek meat around the odd bone structure. When I have a few, I make a bag of fillets and a bag of trimmings- hence the old school nugget of CF goodness below
Plenty of vids on the Tube, there’s a Japanese guy who makes sashimi and eats part meat and part liver in one bite. Haven’t tried that yet
My favorite method for triggers is skinned and fried whole. They are killer smoked whole as well and are like the pork chop of the sea. The folks in the islands skin them and they are highly revered.
Every few years we go to Long Island in the Bahamas. When we bottom fish with local guides, they skin them whole just like you said. Then fry whole. Pretty awesome.
I have never smoked a trigger, will give that a try.
The guides on Long Island always make us put back the “pretty triggers”, meaning the Queen triggers. Too pretty to eat I guess.
The folks in the VI call the Queen Trigger an “Old Wife” and they are quite prolific around the reefs. I never got a straight answer on why them call them that but I presume because they are meaty and a pain in the ass to clean.
When I first moved to St John, I would take buckets of reef fish into the kitchen at the Westin resort to sell to the ladies for them to take home and cook. They kept asking me if I liked old wife and I would say “No ma’am, I prefer young wife” thinking they were hitting on me, not realizing they were talking about the fish.
