Any opinions out there on the best tasting sharks of the Gulf? I've had thresher and mako from the Pacific that was pretty darn tasty any way you cook it!
Only shark I have ever eaten was a black tip. At first I thought it was gonna taste like **** becuase of the smell. We took care of the meat from the moment the shark was on the beach until it was frozen the took a few more steps once it was time to cook it and it was way better than I thought it would be.
I've only tried to eat 3 sharks. A 2' blacktip in the oven, that was decent, a 6'6" bull shark which had rubbery, awful meat, and a 4'9" blacktip on the grill that was very good. So my vote goes to blacktips-grilled.
Mako is by far the best shark. A small blacktip or bull can be a good eat if you will take these steps:
1. Crank it in fast - less smell and less lactic acid in the muscle. If shark smells bad toss it back.
2. Cut tail off and cut gills to bleed and kill fish immediately while it is still alive. You can do this over the side of a boat safely with some practice, some help, a good knife and calm seas.
3. Cut off head and gut shark dump guts after shark has bled out.
4. Carefully cut out dark meat at base of gut cavity by cutting around it and lifting it out - this is the organ with most of the stink in it.
5. You are left with a cleaned shark minus head, tail, guts, blodd and stink - but with the skin still on. The skin has a most of the urea stink that is left in it. You can ice it now or proceed.
6. Spilt the fish along side the cartilage into two hunks running lengthwise. Run sharp knife to cut away skin. Trim meat of skin, cartilage and dark meat. Place in baggie and ice.
7. I like to soak meat in Italian dressing before grilling. After about 30 minutes and take it out coat it with a combination of olive oil and garlic with very light amount of Tony's and lemon Pepper
Makos got that swordfish taste. Recently I've heard that nurse, believe it or not, are one of the best tasting sharks because of their shellfish diet. I'll stick to whiting taco's for the trouble I guess lol.
I like those sharp nose after they lay in the party boat box all day ride in the heat pluss there guts left in them 12hrs and hung out to stink on way in
and hung out to jerkify one more time for a pic taste great that is most folks experience with shark ,.
First thing, get the liver out ASAP , then on with the blood letting ! small bull's and black-tip is all I've tried , the just bareley legal size is the best for the grill .
From this area, Blacktip or Sharpnose. I have also eaten a few Bulls to about 250#. All handled this way.
1) Immediately out of the water, cut off the tail and let the still beating heart pump out as much blood as possible.
2) As soon as the shark is dead enough to handle, filet it. Remove the skin on both sides and take out the blood line and any dark meat left on the filets.
3) Bag and bury in ice. It freezes pretty well cut into serving size pieces and frozen in a bag with water.
I like to marinate it in Italian dressing for a couple hours and grill over charcoal. Shark is extremely lean. If you over cook it it will be dry. Take it off when it is cooked to the point of medium rare beef and it will finish cooking on the way to the table.
I have cooked both black tip and bull shark on the pit. Both were great. Bot were promptly bled while alive then gutted then tossed on ice. Both were under 4'. Have only tried these two. I have only caught two from the beach. The rest of my sharks have been caught from kayak, had to release them crazed fools!
We hauled in a 250# Mako a couple years ago on a party boat and the deck hand said we would have to cook it different?? Well when we cooked it too long it became mushy?? I know that doesn't sound right but that is what happened. It was really good though.
I perfer blacktip,i treat it like deer meat in texas.I cut the tail off and gut it in the water bring it home ,fillet it out and soak the fillets a couple of days changing out the water and draining all the blood out.When you can stick it to your nose and not smell anything,its ready.I soak mine in green tabasco sauce,then fry it up in small pieces.
They are too much work for me :work:, I kept a blacktip once it tasted like swordfish. If you really really really like swordfish then keep it but follow flackmans steps fully! thats important! DO NOT KEEP HAMMERHEADS even though they look really cool! They are bad.
:cheers:
a friend of mind caught a hammer head on a party boat once... i soaked the fillets in milk over night and they were great.. i fooled my kids b/c i mixed them in with some snapper i cooked.lol to this very day, they refuse to believe they ate shark...lol
but i do prefer blacktip, maybe b/c thats all i have ever had besides what i mentioned above
I have never soaked them in milk before, but i am a bad cook when it comes to fish. I can make a hell of a ribeye and king crab meal! I guess I will try that if someone gives me hammerhead filets. I wont keep them on my boat anymore, too messy + to much work.
I would not eat any shark except a Mako. All other sharks except the mako pee threw there muscle and body. That is why they smell like they do. A Mako has a bladder and pees like we do thus it is a much better eating fish. The amonia smell that comes from most sharks is due to the build up of pee in there muscle tissue.
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