# Pensacola Bay Bridge 5-15-2021



## DPete (Nov 27, 2020)

The wife wanted to go for a ride today to check out how the bridge is coming along so I obliged and of course brought some rods and shrimp. We stopped at a couple spots along the east side of the bridge north of the center span and dropped lines near old bridge spans just to see if anything was hungry. The spade's were hungry. It's was dead until about 3 and then the graph starting pinging and showed a schools of something. Right then the two rods we had suspended shrimp on bent over and we pulled up two real healthy spades about 12-14". I checked the bottom sets and a spade grabbed one as I brought the shrimp up and the other down rod was robbed. We didn't keep any because my wife says "they're too pretty to make into sammiches". WTF? I disagree, but happy wife = happy life. We were in 28 feet of water with most active fish at the 18-20ft mark. They showed up in a school and were gone about 20-30 min after it started. I did have a pretty stout one break a 15lb flouro leader boat side but most of them were around the 10-15" range. They are fun to catch.


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## SHunter (Jun 19, 2009)

Smart man!


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## SurfRidr (Apr 24, 2012)

Nice, thanks for the update!


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## CurDog (Nov 14, 2010)

Fun to catch, yes, But better to eat. They'd made some fine sammich eating for sure.


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## sealark (Sep 27, 2007)

Just seen compleation date for 3 mile bridge.
Jan.2022. Sure glad I am too old and turned down the Diving contract on the 3 mile bridge.


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## jack2 (Mar 19, 2010)

CurDog said:


> Fun to catch, yes, But better to eat. They'd made some fine sammich eating for sure.


i've heard that spadefish have ciguatera. anybody know about this? i would like to try some but just like barracuda, i don't want to risk it if they are poison.
jack


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## specktackler57 (May 15, 2011)

I have ate many and no problems. I’d like to know .


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## Boat-Dude (Sep 24, 2011)

I think Jack is making shit up again.


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## jack2 (Mar 19, 2010)

Boat-Dude said:


> I think Jack is making shit up again.


lol. and you believe all of it? lol.
jack


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## SurfRidr (Apr 24, 2012)

I have read that spadefish have similar risk of ciguatera as other reef species like snapper and trigger. I read that barracuda have a noteably higher risk and therefore there is actually a CDC warning against eating them at all, for whatever that is worth. 

I have never tried spadefish but next time we get a school coming around I may bring a couple home and see how they eat.


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## specktackler57 (May 15, 2011)

They are very good eating, white flaky sweet.I don’t eat them very often. Last I did, some guy on pickins pier cast netted a bunch.


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## Boat-Dude (Sep 24, 2011)

Spade fishes main diet is jellyfish.


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## sealark (Sep 27, 2007)

I have smoked spades and made dip. Excellent I use pecan for smoking. Works great on any fish.


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## CurDog (Nov 14, 2010)

Unless the Gulf Coast is classified as Tropical or SubTropic waters (which it isn't), I think they're okay to eat.
So unless they swam in from Cuba and S. America, they should be good to go.
Like SpeckT57 said, I too have ate alot of them without any problems.


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## Big E Nuff (Oct 4, 2007)

Boat-Dude said:


> Spade fishes main diet is jellyfish.


If that is truly what they eat, then not to worry about Ciguatera. Ciguatera is a foodborne illness caused by eating reef fish whose flesh is contaminated with certain toxins. Such individual fish are said to be Ciguatoxic. Another thought, if caught in the bay, I don't think these little Spadefish are swimming around eating Reef Fish like Grouper and Snapper in the bay or even the Gulf.......


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