# Puffer Fish



## airforce0321 (Oct 3, 2008)

Are the puffer fish down here poisonous because i seriously catch at least 20 everytime i fish..??


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## Shiznik (Feb 24, 2008)

I can only say this by my experience. I used to live in Cape Hatteras, NC and my grandfather and I went fishing on the Oregon Inlet bridge where it crosses over to Pea Island and while fishing, I caught one. I was wanting to throw it back and he said oh no!, we are gonna eat that. I thought he didn't know what he was talking about. Well, back at the house, he told me that when cleaning one, you have to only cut out the belly fillet that would up being about 1 1/2" wide and was centered directly under the belly. He explained that I had to make sure not to puncture any other part of the guts or parts of the fish. Well, when it was all said and done, we wound up with a fillet that was about an inch thick and it was really sweet meat when I ate it. He explained that if its not done right, the other parts of the fish were toxic. Please don't try and eat one because of what I have posted because this was in the early 80's and I still haven't cleaned and cooked one since. Hope this helps!


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## Coryphaena (Oct 2, 2007)

Our puffers here vary in their toxicity- the Southern puffer, which is typically the species caught en masse locally is supposedly edible (I've never eaten it), but it has a lookalike (Bandtail puffer)which has high levels of tetrodotoxin. I personally don't eat puffer, but for people wanting to try I'd say- learn to positively ID the species and whether their tetrodotoxin levels are high before attempting it! The tetrodotoxin is concentrated in the liver and gonads of the fish, so people experienced in cleaning the fish know to avoid those organs.


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## Shiznik (Feb 24, 2008)

Yeah, my grandfather wouldn't let me clean it and before moving there, I'm from Pensacola and we had two gill nets back in the day and was very proficcient in cleaning fish. I don't dare mess with them now.


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## lastcast (Oct 12, 2007)

Years ago when I was stationed inNorfolk, we used to catch bunches of them. Someone told me they had really good backstraps on them. So, not knowing, I was cleaning, eating and enjoying the heck out of them. Years later I learned they could be very toxic. Guess I got really, really lucky. The meat is really good. Mostly just thetenderloins, they come out looking like chicken fingers.

Skip


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## ElJay (Oct 1, 2007)

The following will probably earn me a most hated award from PETA.

I spent many years fsishing the Indian ocean and have a special hatred for puffer fish from those times. There is a particularly nasty variety there that runs about 6 inches and they have incredibly sharp beaks/teeth. They love to bite through your line( 35Lb maxima no problem) right at the interface of air and water, guess it looks like something edible to them? Even when playing a fish they will often come up and just bite you off. You can learn a lot of new words when that happens around you. They will nip at your leader and 50Lb can be reduced to 5 lb by their bites, we always checked after every cast to see if it was not compromised by the vermin. When we hooked them we would take them off andpoke their bellies with a stick until they get real puffy them stomp on them and see how far their tail and head can be separated by one stomp. 

I know a few guys who died from eating them and i just could never want to eat one.


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## reelfinatical (Sep 30, 2007)

> *ElJay (10/6/2008)*we would take them off andpoke their bellies with a stick until they get real puffy them stomp on them and see how far their tail and head can be separated by one stomp.



















Poor puffer, LOL...


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## Island24 (May 12, 2008)

I thought they had to be because I catch so many.


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