eating wrasse

What could I say to people who I see taking wrasse and bagging them for the table (small ones looked around a pound). I always try talking them out of it but what can I do, should I bother always seems to fall on def ears every time. need laws to protect them better.
They should be catch and release by law, a chap while back told me he took a 5lb wrasse home

I did this once when I was about 15 years old with a cookoo wrasse,never again.
it fell to bits in the pan and it was very pleasant on the pallet.Ever since I have
adopted a catch and release with theses fish,all beit for the wrong reasons.

Very popular in Connemara as a table fish.

The Aran Islanders used to salt them and send them to the mainland.

A scene in ' The Playboy of the Western world' shows a young lad hauling them up the cliffs on Inismór.

They were salted and dried all around the south and west coast and featured prominently in the diet of coastal people until about 50/60 years ago.
They apparently have a soapy taste when cooked fresh.

They are more commonly called Ballach by the older generation in the South and West coast. Also called Conor, Gunners, Rockfish.

Nothing,
imho ethically and morally fishing for food is the only justifiable cause for sticking a hook in a fish and dragging it from it's natural environment, because yourself and many others do not believe this is true is no different from Jehovahs witnesses wanting you to convert. You may not share the viewpoint but you should respect everyones right to personal opinion.
A five pound fish, while slow growing and territorial, taking years to replace, may feed that persons family. It may offset the cost of his trip for the day and more importantly that may be the reason he fishes.
Only when we all had too much did fishing become a sport and not a method of sustainability.


(ps, I only fish for fun... I release most of what I catch)

Traditionally Wrasse is eaten in Connemara, and I'd say it probably tastes pretty good. I really don't have a problem with someone taking a fish home, be it Wrasse, Plaice, Cod, bass or whatever. What I do have a problem with is people taking home EVERYTHING that's caught, big, small, flat, round etc etc etc. Foreign nationals are often blamed for this practice but we have our fair share of home grown slaughter merchants too. I fish for sport, but I will take home a fish, sometimes 2, because you will never buy a fresher fish at market, or eat a fresher fish in a restaurant. I'll only ever take home what I can eat within 24 hours. I don't see the point in filling a freezer. The only time I would judge somebody for taking home a mature fish is when somebody takes home a bass during the ban.

Robert, wrasse was also a traditional part of the Clare diet, cooked in milk with carrots and onion.
Taking any bass in the closed season would be illegal, without moral or ethical question.

Does it taste good baitdigger ?

I have in the past told people they are 'poisonous' as suggested by their skin colouration!
I have never eaten one myself, it was a couple of auld fellas telling me about their parents just walking down to the rocks with a handline to catch the tea a couple of times a week.

I would have absolutely no problem with anybody taking a Wrasse home. The main reason that people think they taste bad is that they haven't the faintest idea how to cook! I've fished all my life, practice conservation and put back any fish I'm not going to consume. However, I find this whole catch and release idea that's doing the rounds to be ridiculous. If all the sea anglers in Ireland kept everything they ever caught, it still wouldn't even make a dent in the total stock that's taken by the commercial sector. The moral approach to catch and release is spot on, and in some circumstances I think it's justified (slow growing species like Skate, Monkfish etc that have been massively depleted) but unless someone is making a concerted effort to wipe out a local population, I think a catch and release law is a step too far.

Two issues which upset me far more than anybody keeping a fish are anglers that destroy flatfish or whiting that are deep hooked and quite frankly couldn't be bothered to learn how to unhook properly and anglers who take far too much bait from a bait area and then waste it at the end of a session. Everybody has seen these two issues in practice at some point in their angling lives. Still, to this day, I go to my local area to get peeler crab and I find any amount of rocks turned over the wrong way with rotting weed underneath. It's not winklers that are doing this, it's anglers. Amazing how some anglers still don't give a damn about their environment.

Sorry about the rant, but yeah, I think it's fine if someone takes how a wrasse to eat. I've eaten them and I'd do it again.

thats fair enough guys but with fish around europe on the decline from over fishing, if we dont protect more species like the slow growing wrasse there wont be any sport left. i didnt emply any nationality in this doesnt matter thats not the point and i didnt ask what they taste like. n guys your going back a few years when ireland was very poor country, that would be perfectly fine with me if it was for a human to survive, but now a days come on, watever anyways im gona start eating them, cant beat them join them
goodluck

Commercial Value

Although wrasse are edible they are not a popular food fish in Britain and there is very little demand for this species from commercial fisheries. The fact that they live in shallow, inshore rocky waters mean that they are mostly protected from being caught as bycatch in trawlers nets. Since wrasse are a long-lived and slow growing fish that doesn’t mature until a late stage of life their numbers can be noticeably reduced by anglers, so most people fish for this species on a catch and release basis. Both ballan an cuckoo wrasse are currently considered species of Least Concern by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservtion of Nature).

I used to put wrasse back as i thought they were inedible until a friend of mine cooked some cookoo wrasse for me they tasted like crab meat then tried ballen wrasse myself they tasted a bit sour so now i will only keep cookoo's and put ballen;s back
mickser

It doesn't matter how they taste, different opinions come to play and some people like bacon and cabbage and some loathe the taste! However, a commonly reared pig takes a max of 4 month to reach maturity and it is killed thereafter to supply us with pork, bacon, puddings etc. Not the ideal situation by all means - but in comparison, for a humble wrasse it takes about 20 years to reproduce just once? Everyone likes bacon but Wrasse? Surely you are in the position to answer your question now for yourself... anyhow, I stick to bacon...

Very popular in Connemara as a table fish.

The Aran Islanders used to salt them and send them to the mainland.

A scene in ' The Playboy of the Western world' shows a young lad hauling them up the cliffs on Inismór.

They were salted and dried all around the south and west coast and featured prominently in the diet of coastal people until about 50/60 years ago.
They apparently have a soapy taste when cooked fresh.

They are more commonly called Ballach by the older generation in the South and West coast. Also called Conor, Gunners, Rockfish.

history aside - do you believe it is advisable to target any of these slow growing species now as food for the table?

No wish to open up the old catch and release vs catch and take home debate. For the record I put my fish back. Angling for me is a hobby so I get my food in a shop. I've never eaten a wrasse so can't comment as to the flavour or lack thereof. But most animals are edible if you are determined to eat them and want to go to the bother of preparing them in a certain way and smothering them in sauces etc. There is a body of opnion that wrasse in particular live in a small localised territory and that therefore sustained angling on a given mark could ruin it. If you want to kill wrasse that is your choice but I for one wish you would consider returning these hard fighting beauties. If not for the conservation of the species then for the selfish reason that you and your fellow anglers can continue to fish for them.

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As you say it is because they are territorial that they are wiped out off a mark very quickly, although I have seen far more harm done by a Clare potter who wiped out one of the best marks I know just for pot-bait. Unfortunately there are those who believe the sea is an in-exhaustible free larder, have no idea of how long wrasse take to grow or just don't care enough to be bothered. We cannot do anything about it. I have never had a reasonable answer when I have tried to explain the errors of taking undersized fish but as I said earlier there are people who do not understand the decadence of returning a perfectly good eating fish. you will never explain to them otherwise.

if theres no fish left you wont need to worry about bait . only way we get people to listen is get a law for catch and release with a heavy fine if broken . end of story, otherwise keep hammering away at them and in a few years there willl be nothing left. then you talk s*** about how they eat wrasse in ireland and all the rest. it will be a story you can tell your grandchildren in years to come about how the humans destroyed all the fish and thats why there is no sea fishing sport left, forget the trawlers there bad enough, a lot of people are just on the band wagon, just blame the commercial sector and on we go! the day will come sooner than we think

People have been catching wrasse for centuries, and they are still here in good numbers. The habitat they live in protects them. Trawlers can't target them and anglers don't rate them as a food fish. So if a few anglers want to take them for the pot work away they will be still here for years to come.

I have a selection of fish which I and my family enjoy eating, therefore I bring them home with me whenever I am lucky enough to catch a good sized specimen.
These are: mackerel, ling, cod, pollock, coalie, red gurnard, john dory, whiting, flounder, brill, turbot, dab, seatrout, squid, scad, the occasional bass, lobster, spider crab and octopus.
There are others I would not consider fit for food for many reasons and I always release them, even when they are considered specimen fish or record breakers.
Anyone to his own, but I don't really care for these certificates, so I let go of: all the members of the shark family, including all ray, all of the wrasse species, all of the so called 'mini species' and fish which I cannot identify to my satisfaction eg. slob trout, all of the mullet variants, conger, common eel, angler fish, freshwater species except brown trout pollan and grayling but no smaller than 25cm and no larger than 30cm and in season. Still haven't released a weaver alive though too many unforgivable painful memories associated with one of their family members...
However, I believe there are plenty of fish I can consume having a clean and conscious mind and without running the risk to decimate endangered or slow growing species. Considering the time I go out just to enjoy my fishing and come home with no catch other than a soul and a heart full with peace and happiness, full with pictures and ever lasting impressions of our still intact nature, that's not too bad a choice, isn't' it?

You'll take sea trout and brown trout, but not slob trout? The Austrian, I'm beginning to think you're a bit weird!