Are Bull Reds Good Eating?

[Jolly Roger]

but would you eat a fish with worms?

Yes, do it all the time. And most anyone that eats trout or reds does also. Most often they just do not know it.


Here you go, info on the life of a worm thta I posted some time back

) While cleaning the bigger spec I found a small pocket of worms in the fillet and was wondering if it's still safe to eat. I cut them out but still curious if the worms are dangerous to humans. Any advice? Thanks!

Great report

Most trout and reds have worms. Worms in the trout are usually in the middle of the fillet and easy to see. The worms in the reds are down by the tail, you can miss them on reds by not filleting them all the way to the tail. But redfish on half shell is also worms on half shell. The life cycle of the worms is odd and complex. How they have survived with such a complex life cycle is cool. Here are a few details

"The spaghetti worms we see in these fish are really parasitic tapeworms of sharks, who are just using the trout or drum as an intermediate host. The cycle begins with eggs produced by an eight-inch long adult worm which lives in a shark's intestine. After being passed into seawater, the egg hatches into a tiny swimming larva called a coracidium. If this larva is eaten within two days by a small marine crustacean like a copepod, it develops into another stage called a procercoid.

At this stage some uncertainty exists as to what happens. The copepod may be eaten by a trout, passing the larval worm on the trout. However, since small animals like copepods are seldom eaten by larger trout and since very few trout under ten inches long have spaghetti worms, another host is suspected. More than likely, a small bait fish like an anchovy eats the copepod and it in turn is eaten by the larger trout. In any case, once the larval worm is in the trout's digestive tract, it tunnels its way into the trout's flesh where it may live for several years. The life cycle is completed when a shark eats the trout and serves as host for the adult worm.

The fact that a spaghetti worm may live several years (up to 6 or 7) may surprise many fishermen, since they often claim that more fish are infected in one season than another. This may possibly be due to different populations of trout with different infection rates, moving up and down in a marsh system seasonally. "

Source

http://www.thunderboltcharters.com/worm.htm

[fredtoo]

I had the same experience with Bull Reds as everyone else. I heard that some people have had success with slow smoking them.

Do they inhale?
fredtoo