Barred Surf Perch

[ErikAllen17]

Sorry... advanced search on the site is currently broken, so I can't hunt around for my answer.

My wife always gets mad at me because with all of the fishing I do... I never bring anything home. Sometimes it's because I didn't catch anything, other times it's because I never really thought about if the catch would be anything worth eating. With BSP so abundant year round, I catch them almost every time I hit the water. Most are too small to keep and I would never think twice about not throwing them back... but some of them are straight up pigs (14-16") and I'm wondering if they're tasty?

Does anyone have a recipe for BSP? Do you fillet them, chunk them and make tacos? I'm accepting all entries!!! Submit away!

[Jmericle]

The couple of times I had surf perch, I scaled them really well, cut vertical slits in the fish about 1" apart and seasoned with salt and pepper. Stuff the cavity with herbs of your choice. I like thyme, oregano, and parsley along with a slice or 2 of citrus like lemon, lime, or orange. Put a heavy coating of olive oil on the outside of the fish and grill whole. Put the fish on the grill and cook until done and this varies by the size of the fish. Once cooked, pull the meat from the bones and enjoy. Damn I want some perch now. Hope this helps.

[seal]

We normally fillet them and the make fine fish tacos. Now some think the fillet word is a bad word around here but hey I'd rather fillet than deal with scaling etc.. They are a bit slimy like most perch so a little challenging to fillet.

[Which Way Out]

BSP at this time are the only fish my wife said NOT to bring home. She has tried to cook it a number of different ways and can't stand em.

What she prefers. Yeah who doesn't right?
WWO

http://i769.photobucket.com/albums/xx340/WhichWayOut/906.jpg (http://s769.photobucket.com/user/WhichWayOut/media/906.jpg.html)

[pitman]

I was also curious about eating them. I talked to a guy one morning at BC and he said takes them right home and fries them like you would a tilapia. I haven't tried it yet tho. My shorts become Leo bait!...

[Stumpknocker]

They have rather soft flesh...I've had best results filleting and frying them...the coating holds it together somewhat...tasty though.

[ErikAllen17]

[B][SIZE=3]http://i769.photobucket.com/albums/xx340/WhichWayOut/906.jpg (http://s769.photobucket.com/user/WhichWayOut/media/906.jpg.html)

Send one of those my way please... looks like you have more than enough! :UDaMan:

[Stray Cat]

Beer batter surf perch tacos... Some of the best you'll ever eat.

[ErikAllen17]

Beer batter surf perch tacos... Some of the best you'll ever eat.

That's kind of what I figured. When caught, do I just throw them in a cooler packed with ice or do I have to bleed and gut them so the meat doesn't spoil?

[Stray Cat]

That's kind of what I figured. When caught, do I just throw them in a cooler packed with ice or do I have to bleed and gut them so the meat doesn't spoil?

Gill & gutting not needed just ice till fillet time. On a side note surf perch give birth to live young, so sometimes on the fat females fully formed surfies will spill out.

[ErikAllen17]

I've heard that before... but I heard it's when they "expire" the fry fall out. That's kind of another reason why I'm thinking of gilling them near the water, before they hit the ice. I really don't want to get home and have a cooler full of frozen BSP babies!

[seal]

We took a prego one home years ago before we were more careful about not taking Mom's from the surf. Got ready to start the cleaning out in front of the house when she started spewing out babies. The funny or at least coincidental part of it was that they were all falling out into the gutter that was running with water (it was raining), don't know if any of those suckers made it to the ocean but we were near the beach in Huntington so they at least had a chance.

[DarkShadow]

So if you have babies pouring out, can you deep fry them and make popcorn fish?

[ErikAllen17]

deep fry them

You want to "fry" the fry... :ROFL: