# remora's edible or not?



## stevesmi

been catching them lately and wondering if the slimy critters are edible. 

it says online they are, but i dont want to kill a fish and take it home to just end up throwing it out.


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## hjorgan

Hey those are only in season between June 1st and June 2nd. Must be between 14 and 15" slot length to possess, and the limit is 1 per boat. Unless the estimated total catch share is met then without much warning, the season will close.

I don't think I'd eat one but if you try let us know how they are.


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## Jet fishin

hjorgan said:


> Hey those are only in season between June 1st and June 2nd. Must be between 14 and 15" slot length to possess, and the limit is 1 per boat. Unless the estimated total catch share is met then without much warning, the season will close.
> 
> I don't think I'd eat one but if you try let us know how they are.


You are allowed to keep one over if caught in state waters as long as you are not checked in state waters.:whistling:


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## amarcafina

Pin fish won't even eat them.


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## Burnt Drag

We were commercial fishing a few years ago and caught one... I cut it up on the bait table... about an hour later, my mate said... "What's that aweful smell?" Sure enough,
it was the pilot fish (remora) that was stinking so badly.


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## NoMoSurf

Hell, they swim with sharks and the sharks dont eat em... hhmmmmm....


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## jplvr

If you cut it up for bait, it's not coming off the hook, provided you can get the hook through the skin in the first place.


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## doggfish

remoras suck lol


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## SHunter

They look like that they would be an extremely oily fish. If you try one, let us know how it tastes. I just toss them back.


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## H2OMARK

SHunter said:


> They look like that they would be an extremely oily fish. If you try one, let us know how it tastes. I just toss them back.


I stick them on the side of the boat and see how long they hang on. :thumbsup:


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## Orion45

Most fish are edible. The question you should have asked is are remoras palatable to eat.

Must be slim pickings offshore. :whistling:


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## piscator

Took the teenagers fishing a couple of years ago. This was the highlight of the day for them


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## Trophyhusband

jplvr said:


> If you cut it up for bait, it's not coming off the hook, provided you can get the hook through the skin in the first place.


I tried to cut one up for bait. Damn near ruined my knife. That is the toughest fish skin I've ever come across.


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## Mike Moore

jplvr said:


> If you cut it up for bait, it's not coming off the hook, provided you can get the hook through the skin in the first place.


just stick the sucker part to your hook :thumbup:

not sure if they are edible but i do know that they will turd bomb ya when you try and take um off the hook!!!


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## Tobiwan

Sorry for the necrobump but it says on wiki that the cobia's closest relative is the remora so maybe they are good to eat, I know cobia are!


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## SHO-NUFF

Tobiwan said:


> Sorry for the necrobump but it says on wiki that the cobia's closest relative is the remora so maybe they are good to eat, I know cobia are!


Fry some up and let us know how it works out. 
If they don't smell like you are frying Chitterlings, they might be decent table fare. 
Remember, not too many years ago, Triggers were considered trash fish by most folks....


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## swander

HaHa!! Had a guy on the boat get sick and had to hang over the transom and take a dump!! The rhemora practically jumped out ot the water to eat it up!! All of it!! You go right ahead and fry some up!! Not me


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## Tobiwan

swander said:


> HaHa!! Had a guy on the boat get sick and had to hang over the transom and take a dump!! The rhemora practically jumped out ot the water to eat it up!! All of it!! You go right ahead and fry some up!! Not me


LOL that is pretty funny. 

I hate to break this to you though but I bet there are a lot of animals that you eat. That would eat your poo.


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## JD7.62

SHO-NUFF said:


> Fry some up and let us know how it works out.
> If they don't smell like you are frying Chitterlings, they might be decent table fare.
> Remember, not too many years ago, *Triggers were considered trash fish by most folks....*


I will never understand that. Triggers are mighty fine eating but I did damn near slice the tip of my thumb off a couple days while cleaning one. :thumbdown:


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## Kenton

Redfish were considered trash fish too way back when.


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## oxbeast1210

We need to start a thread saying they are tasty so people can tame their population a bit....


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## dvldocz

+1 ox


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## reelthrill

I had a friend of mine, "KING KEVIN" on this forum, clean one and fry it about a month ago. He said it stunk like crazy when he was cleaning it but the meat tasted like a mixture of redfish and cobia. He said he would definitely keep more in the future.


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## Tobiwan

reelthrill said:


> I had a friend of mine, "KING KEVIN" on this forum, clean one and fry it about a month ago. He said it stunk like crazy when he was cleaning it but the meat tasted like a mixture of redfish and cobia. He said he would definitely keep more in the future.


I was reading another forum about this subject that I found after googling "are remora edible?" and a guy on there said that it does taste a lot like cobia. 

Which doesn't surprise me because as I stated above the cobia's closest known relative is the remora.


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## Kenton

Im going to give them a try..why not.


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## Brad King

I actually heard from a close Friend that the taste was very very similar to Cobia!!!! Who knows, I think I'll try one as well


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## knot @ Work

Makes good Chum, sorta like a BoBo 

You could eat it but why would you want to.

SKANKYYYYY :thumbdown::whistling::thumbdown::whistling:


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## 16983

I wonder if soaking it in milk would take away most/all of the smell??? Just curious


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## chad403

A shark will not even eat one.....


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## reelthrill

HankHill said:


> I wonder if soaking it in milk would take away most/all of the smell??? Just curious


From what I was told, the smell is not in the meat. "The guts just smell horrible.


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## Brad King

reelthrill said:


> From what I was told, the smell is not in the meat. "The guts just smell horrible.


On that note, a redfish has one of the stinkiest guts ever!!!


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## reelthrill

Same with cleaning a wild turkey but the meat sure is good!


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## Joe Sixpack

From another forum, here is why I will never contemplate eating one:

island_dream
25-01-2006, 10:16 AM

All this talk of Remora brings back some memories for me - 1 in particular that I have tried really hard to forget.....

About 5 years ago my wife and I, along with 2 other couples, chartered a 40' yacht around the Whitsundays for a week or so. #We anchored up 1 day off Whitehaven Beach and went ashore for a few hours on what would have to be one of Queensland's best beaches. #We had been fishing (without much success) from the tender for the previous couple of days, so hankering for a decent feed of fish we decided it was probably worth leaving a set flesh bait over the side of the yacht while we were ashore - you never know your luck. #This was one of those decisions in life that I came to regret.

We returned to the boat to find that the set line had been taken by a two foot remora which was excitedly decked. #We were not all that keen on eating it, although we were running a little low on bait by then, and along with a very full stomach the fish obviously had two nice thick fillets. #So I (being the only one on board with any fishing experience) volunteered to knock the fillets off him & cut them into sections to replenish our bait supply, with the other guys looking on to see just how a fish is filleted.

Half way through my display of finely honed filleting skills , I noticed a strange sticky brown substance oozing from the fish and running down both my arms. #Then I caught a whiff in the breeze of curious smell, but held off commenting in front of the ladies on board, figuring it must be last nights curry catching up with one of the other two guys. #

By this stage the brown stuff from the fish had oozed out onto the cockpit seat and was running down onto the deck, and I was well and truly up to my elbows in it. #Then, I looked up to see the that all the onlookers had started backing away from me with a funny sort of grimace on their faces :-? - strange (I thought) given their initial level of curiosity when I started the filleting process.

With the fillets off, it was clear that its stomach was completely engorged. #Unpreturbed, and quite curious as to just what it had eaten to become that full - I took a quick stroke of the filleting knife down the length of the stomach wall to expose its contents, and with a sharp push from behind with my fingers, I emptied the contents of the gut onto the floor of the cockpit. 

Splat! - And there it was - To my shock (read ABSOLUTE HORROR) One BIG FAT JUICY BROWN HUMAN TURD! - AAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!  #

Only then did I put it all together. #By then the entire crew had taken off to the other end of the boat, the lot of them hanging over the bow rail in fits of laughter.;D #In complete shock I instinctively tossed the fish, the fillets, AND my good filleting board & knife into the air with the lot landing over the side in the drink. #I went (fully clothed) straight over the other side into the water desperately trying to get it all off my hands and arms. #

After finally working up the courage to get back on board the yacht and face my new friend, now disintegrating on the cockpit floor (no-one else wanted to know about him, and all too busy laughing hysterically on the bow of the boat anyway ;D) I spent the next two hours cleaning up all the mess. #8 hours later I could still smell it on my hands and arms, and three nights later we could still smell it in the cockpit.

Needless to say, since that day I have never been able to convince any of the other crew members to come fishing with me. #Now 5 years on from this experience, my wife and I can't even eat fish with anyone who was on that boat without that subject coming up, in fact even now I am genuinely feeling sick recalling and writing about it. 

I reckon the Remora must, prior to finding us, have spent some time attached to the underside of a boat that it had found with a faulty toilet waste macerator. #It must have been just sitting there for who knows how long lazily engulfing each nugget as it was expelled.  #

Apologies for the length of this (my first) post, but given the subject of the thread I thought it was a story that had to be told.....BTW even if they didn't smell so good the fillets looked great, nice and thick and in texture and colour, not unlike Mackerel. #Of course its up to the readers whether they consider eating Remora. #Somehow, I don't think I (or anyone else on that boat) will - not ever! :-[


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## jakec

gross. just gross.


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## Play'N Hooky Too

Damn! You would have to post that just before lunch..


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## knot @ Work

Six Pack, great post,

if that doesn' t make you want to throw them back nuthin will....

:notworthy::thumbup::notworthy:


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## Tobiwan

Idk but like I said before there are probably lots of fish/animals that you eat everyday that would eat your poo.

I mean most dogs if I were to take a dump in your yard would eat it. Not that we are going to eat dogs or anything. Just simply pointing out that a lot of animals would eat your poo.

I bet a red snapper would eat your poo given the chance.


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## wilfish4774

From what I understand the health food industry is grinding, drying, and encapsulating them to be sold a a female aphrodisiac. So it might be worth a try to fry one up for their girl friend, maybe?


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## beeritself

Scratch that it was posted above by joe sixpack


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## Kenton

Haha, i was about to say, way to bring this oldie back with a bang!


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## speckledcroaker

sailcat YUM, right up there with snapper n grouper


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## eym_sirius

reelthrill said:


> From what I was told, the smell is not in the meat.


I had wondered about the smell of the meat, so when I filleted it, I smelled it to see if there was any kind of smell - There was none. 

The meat was extra clean and nice and so beautiful when fried up. When I filleted it, I didn't puncture the digestive tract, so there wasn't a bad smell in the cleaning process, either. 

Not bloody, not oily, not bony, just nice white meat. FYI - I fried up Spanish Mackerel separately. The remora was far superior in terms of no fishy taste/aftertaste and white-meat firmness.

edited to add - Any fish will ooze yucky stuff when you cut open the digestive tract. The key in processing remoras - Don't cut into the digestive tract!


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## eym_sirius

Possibly, most of the remoras caught at the end of the piers live most of their lives there and consume mostly bait scraps/fish pieces discarded by fishermen. Regarding "what fish eats them", I hooked a small remora on a sabiki one time and as I was bringing it out of the water, a barracuda slashed at it. Instinctively, I let it back down and got my bait outfit immediately spooled by the big 'cuda when he came back for seconds! It was an instinct/reflex-strike, I'm sure, because I've tried to get cudas to go after remoras since and they wouldn't even look at it.


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## need2fish

Great post joesixpak - had me rolling on the floor.


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## Lexcore

H2OMARK said:


> I stick them on the side of the boat and see how long they hang on. :thumbsup:


That what my friend do with them, he slap them against the boat and remove the hook and let them free the self. :yes::whistling:


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## Tonyspeero

*remora edible*

sorry guys to contradict but yes actually it is edible and palatable. 
I would not fish it on first intention but if it comes to your line or your speargun...
The best is to cook it with it skin on a barbecue (since the skin is very hard, it is easy to cut it off when grilled),as they do in japon . You can also eat it in sashimi, quite good too. Little fat fish mean lot of omega 3 ...


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## Tonyspeero

*remora edible*

as eym_sirius said :thumbup: , he is right, dont cut in digestive tract. The meat is clean,white or pink with no smell at all.


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## JoeyWelch

I use to know a girl named Ramora. 
Nasty Nasty Nasty.


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## kingfish501

Even the Vietnamese throw remoras back...and that was after I tried convincing them that eating remoras would give you an all day woody.


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## Play'N Hooky Too

Must be getting close to Halloween, this is the 4th Zombie Tread I've seen rise from the dead this week.:001_huh:


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## perdidochas

Burnt Drag said:


> We were commercial fishing a few years ago and caught one... I cut it up on the bait table... about an hour later, my mate said... "What's that aweful smell?" Sure enough,
> it was the pilot fish (remora) that was stinking so badly.


Just a bit of trivia, a pilot fish is a different fish than a remora. The pilot fish is a small jack with vertical stripes and no sucker on top of it's head. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_fish


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## perdidochas

JD7.62 said:


> I will never understand that. Triggers are mighty fine eating but I did damn near slice the tip of my thumb off a couple days while cleaning one. :thumbdown:


They thought triggers were poison in the late 1970s (and probably before).


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## jack2

perdidochas said:


> They thought triggers were poison in the late 1970s (and probably before).


i guess it was just us alabama boys but in the early '60's, we would catch a lot of red snapper with the trigger. a stringer full of ars was not uncommon back then. we would skin the trigger and then boil it for fish cakes or fry up some with the snapper. it was not poison.

jack


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## perdidochas

jack2 said:


> i guess it was just us alabama boys but in the early '60's, we would catch a lot of red snapper with the trigger. a stringer full of ars was not uncommon back then. we would skin the trigger and then boil it for fish cakes or fry up some with the snapper. it was not poison.
> 
> jack


The deckhands on the Orange Beach party boat we took when I was a teen (1978 or 1979) said they were poison.


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## LY-zer

They only said that so they could keep them. They are one of my favorite fish to eat. Cobia is my favorite and was also considered trash back then. Funny how things work.


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## perdidochas

LY-zer said:


> They only said that so they could keep them. They are one of my favorite fish to eat. Cobia is my favorite and was also considered trash back then. Funny how things work.



They dropped them back in the water. I think they didn't want to deal with them. The prize fish to catch was ling (cobia) back then. My Dad caught one while we were bottomfishing.


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## ChileRelleno

One dumbass newbie resurrects a six year dead thread.


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