Toad lunch

[Shady]

Cooked up the toad fish from yesterday for lunch today blackened style. It was pretty good! The texture of it was sort of soft, kind of reminded me of catfish. Toad = catfish of the sea. Unfortunately, I only got a before and after pic, lol.

[Goody]

Nice. Lol

Mobile

[jsquare]

You're right, they really do taste pretty good. They are pretty soft-fleshed, though. I guess you don't need much in the way of muscle when all you do is hide under rocks. If you decide that they are a delicacy and want to catch them, I bet they will stop biting.

[jsquare]

BTW, are those the cheeks at the top of the first photo?

[Shady]

The problem is most of them are too small to bother with cleaning. Under 12" probably not worth it...
And yes I cut the cheeks out too.

[Capt C-Hawk]

Doesn't look as much like a turd with teeth when you get the skin off.

[mweber02]

As a kid I remember everyone tossing them on shore to die as an invasive species. Never knew they were any good to eat.

[Shady]

I'm pretty sure they're native to the bay

[mweber02]

The very well may be. I remember seeing them a lot 25 years ago. Can't remember the last time I saw one since then.

[tufnik]

When I posted my first and only toad meal over a year ago, seemed like half the posters had negative comments (wouldn't dare try eating one..lol..). The small ones are tasty too, but the fine bones make it harder to eat. I didn't try them blackened. I had mine flour-coated and fried so I could taste the fish without the strong spices. I forgot to cut out the cheeks. Do they taste better than the body?

[Shady]

the cheeks were pretty similar to the rest, but even softer texure

[Shady]

I can say that I will plan to keep them in the future with a personal minimum size of 12"

[tufnik]

I wouldn't really target them, but if I catch a big one and had a tooth for toad, I'd probably take it home. Preparing them simply involves cutting the head off and pulling the skin off the body with pliers. It didn't seem like you could fillet the thing, so I just had the body fried whole. Now I have a curiosity to trying them blackened.

[Deadwood]

WE catch very large TF in Dbay while targeting Tog. Never thought to try them although some do eat them and I understand there is a market for them abroad. They may hold the secret to curing Cancer. Never know.

[Romo]

Was out on the outer wall this year and regrettably was slaying toads instead of togs. There were two very nice asian gentlemen anchored in a tin boat filling up the whole hull with them and asked if they could have mine. I gladly tossed them probably about a dozen while I was in their vicinity and thought about keeping a few for myself but already had a couple keeper tog and flounder so I let them go. Never seen more toads in my life than at the outer wall that week in July.