![]() Like politics, all fishing is local, so gear up at a bait and tackle shop near where you’re planning to fish. While some are notoriously tight-lipped about favorite spots, most have, at one time or another, gotten some help themselves and are willing to pay it forward. (Northern spots are better for rockfish.) If you’re not sure where to go, check with a fisherman or check the accompanying list. Some of the best local spots for bluefish, which are just beginning to make their way into the area on their annual migration, are the south ends of the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River. Start with blues, and just see if you don’t start checking weather reports and tide charts, planning a trip for rockfish or flounder or even tuna. If there’s a bluefish in the vicinity, it’s very likely to hit and pull hard, so it’s the perfect gateway fish. The rod bends, the reel spins, the adrenaline flows. However you do it, if you get into a school of them, you can pull in fish after fish after fish.Ĭatching a fish - any fish - is more exciting than it has a right to be. You can live-line spot or top-fish with poppers. You can troll for them, you can cast for them. Anglers around the Chesapeake Bay catch blues with bait as varied as chunked menhaden and metal spoons. They eat just about anything that catches their attention, including each other, and jewelry. If you don’t, bluefish is a great place to start.īluefish are notoriously voracious. Another is that catching a bluefish is seriously fun. The taste of fresh bluefish is only one of the reasons to CIY. ![]() But the best way to ensure that a fish has been caught recently and handled properly is to catch it yourself. If you find a market that gets fish straight off the boats and fillets them right there in front of you, by all means buy your bluefish. It is possible to buy impeccably fresh bluefish. As little as a day’s exposure, though, and you’ll opt for the plank. Bacteria begin the conversion of TMAO to TMA, and oxygen kicks off oxidation.īefore air has a chance to do its work, bluefish is meaty, succulent and mild. ![]() Myoglobin accelerates fat oxidation, which means that fish with a lot of it - and bluefish and mackerel top the myoglobin charts - go rancid more quickly.ĭegeneration begins when you kill the fish and expose it to air. The second problem is myoglobin, a component of the dark fat that runs down the center and under the skin of bluefish. “That’s more sensitive than the fanciest scientific equipment,” Decker says. ![]() It’s the compound that makes fish smell fishy, and the human nose can detect it at levels as low as 10 parts per billion. Even if you’ve never heard of trimethylamine, you know it when you smell it. The first is the conversion of trimethylamine oxide, or TMAO, a kind of fish antifreeze that bluefish have in abundance, to another chemical, trimethylamine (TMA). So why not try the bluefish? Because the operative word is “fresh.” That’s the problem.Īccording to Eric Decker, head of the food science department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, there are actually two problems, both of which involve chemistry and both of which crop up as soon as the fish dies. Crowd pleasers such as striped bass and scallops, for example, can run two or even three times the price of fresh bluefish. If you haven’t already, you’ll start seeing them in local fish markets, and when you do, you’ll notice a significant price difference between bluefish and much of the other locally caught seafood. In other words, there are lots of bluefish, and their season is just beginning. ![]()
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