Thread: Worth the effort !

Just finished off a plate of Spade fish fillets and must say that all of the tedious work of cleaning was well worth the sweet meat derived from it . Will be fishing for them with even more vigor this year . Hopefully they will be larger than the ones I caught this past fall . If you haven't tried them ,you should . Dan S., thanks for teaching me the art .

Never caught one on a hook and line but used to spear fish for them at Cocoa Beach Fla. many years ago. They would school up in the canals in the fall. What's the recipe for catching them on hook and line?

You don't have to fillet them. Scale, gut, and head them and cook them up in a pan or in the grill.

It's easy to catch them when they are around the pilings. Small bait on a small hook. I like fish bites since its hard for them to steal the bait. Last year I filled an I've chest with spades and only changed the bait a couple of times.

Originally Posted by AA

You don't have to fillet them. Scale, gut, and head them and cook them up in a pan or in the grill.

This!
I clean them just that way, and then lay them on aluminum foil, butter or olive oil, salt, wrap & toss on BBQ.
The meat comes right off the bones & is freaking fantastic.

As for catching them, small hook, small/tough bait & a split shot just big enough to get it down.
Most of the time you can easily sight fish them, just put the bait in front of them & hold on.

Couple summers back, we tore them up in June & July on the pier on small pieces of pink and white FishBite on a #4 baitholder. And some big ones at that, dinner plate size.
Large ones (dinner plate size) were filleted. Smaller ones were scaled & gutted (leave the head on) and then baked. Fantastic.

I filleted all of mine ,even the smallest ones . (That was a learning experience! ) Just takes less freezer and cooler space for transporting long distances . I'm thinking it was Lero that said that he just gutted the small one dropped them into a deep fryer . That way the fins got crunchy and were good to munch on .

+1. Beats standing around staring at water and playing with sharks. Pier#r showed me the tricks of the spadefish trade. One of the best saltwater fish I have tried to date. Fun sight fishing.

I'm with you Rich !!!!

if you have a boat the close rigs have some true hogs on them

Spade fish large or small are great on the table. It sounds like my secret is getting out. The last time I was on the pier I got a good mess of nice size ones around the bathrooms while most people were rushing on by to the end to fight the crowd for Spanish Macs.